Summary:
An effective way to teach Robert Frost´s "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening," this lesson plan offers guidance on how teachers can get students to relate to the poem.

Details or Sample:
The best way to teach a poem is to get students to relate it to their own lives. Given that Robert Frost was just some guy who lived over fifty years ago, it may seem tricky to get contemporary students to relate to “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” but it’s really not as tricky as you think. Frost, at his best, wrote poems that touched upon universal human emotions no matter when we live, and this poem, certainly one of his best, is especially easy for students to relate to.

The first thing students need to do is read it. And since it’s short, have a student read it aloud in class. It’s best to call on a student you know can read well since students will lose interest if it’s read poorly.

Now you want to touch upon the deeper issue of what the poem is really about, that is, it’s about a person who’s in a lot of pain who wants to run away from it all. The best way to get into this discussion is to ask the students the mood of the poem. The mood is somber. How do we know? Well, first of all, the figure is alone in a snowstorm at night. That’s pretty somber. But it’s not just any night; it’s “The darkest evening of the year.” What does that mean? Does it mean there are no moon and stars? There are plenty of nights during which there are no moon and stars, so why is this evening darker than the others? What you’re getting the students to realize here is that the darkness isn’t external but rather internal. It’s darkest because the speaker is depressed. We don’t know what he or she is depressed about, but he’s depressed. As a result, he’s looking at those woods longingly, for they are “lovely, dark and deep.” And here’s the point at which you can get your students really involved.

All high school students have rough times. It’s the nature of high school. They’re not getting along with their parents, they’re suffering from peer pressure, they’ve gotten their hearts broken—whatever the reason, high school students have tough times, just like the speaker in this poem. Get the students to talk about those rough times, and get them to share how they feel. Then ask them if, during those times, they wouldn’t like to just run away from it all. Ask them their ideas of where they’d like to run away to. Get them to elaborate. Then relate it all to the speaker of this poem, who wants to run away in these woods, just run and run into their lovely, dark deepness.

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Written by: Billy Skid
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