Which poems are on the sheets?

Classic poems old enough to be in the public domain, printed exactly as the poet wrote them, with the original line breaks, punctuation and capitals. Each print picks a poem at random from the grade's set, with an answer key at the end.

What do the questions ask?

Five things, one question each: the speaker or situation, what a figurative line means, the effect of a sound or structure choice like rhyme or repetition, the tone, and the theme. That covers what the seventh grade standards ask about a poem's sound and form.

7th grade poetry analysis

7th grade poetry analysis worksheets

Seventh grade poetry analysis worksheets print a classic poem exactly as the poet wrote it, then ask five questions: who is speaking, what a figurative line means, what a sound or shape choice does, the tone, and the theme. The rhyme, the repeated words and the stanza breaks all count as evidence.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core RL.7.4, RL.7.5.

Each click picks one of the 15 passages written for this grade. Every sheet comes with its answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of passages you'll get

Read the poem twice, once for what happens and once for how it sounds. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question.

A Psalm of Life, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the…

The subtitle is 'What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist.' Who is speaking in the poem, and to whom? a young man's heart, answering a psalmist's gloomy view of life · an old man looking back on the mistakes he made in a long life · a psalmist teaching a young man that life is only a dream · a soldier writing home from a battlefield
Answer: a young man's heart, answering a psalmist's gloomy view of life
What does 'Footprints on the sands of time' mean? the example a person's deeds leave for those who come later · the marks travelers leave behind them when they walk along a beach · memories that wash away as quickly as they are made · the mistakes people make when they rush through life

Each print picks one of the 15 passages written for this grade, and its questions come with it. With 15 to pick from, a second print can land on one you've used, so check the title before you hand it out.

What's on a 7th grade sheet

7th grade sheets draw from 15 passages, 61 to 221 words long. 7th and 8th grade print from the same 15 passages. What changes is the standard (RL.7.4, RL.7.5 here) and the teaching notes below. None of these passages are on 6th grade sheets.

Some of the titles: The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, Up-Hill, by Christina Rossetti, Grass, by Carl Sandburg, The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus, There Will Come Soft Rains, by Sara Teasdale, A Time to Talk, by Robert Frost.

Poem. Read the poem twice, once for what happens and once for how it sounds. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question. One passage per sheet, with its own question set.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

Read the poem aloud twice before touching the questions. The first time, ask what is happening and who is talking. The second time, stop only at the punctuation, not at the end of each line, and listen for what repeats. Most seventh graders answer the sound and structure questions right once they have heard the poem.

Watch for: The speaker is not automatically the poet. A poem can speak as a child, a soldier or a tree, so the questions say 'the speaker' on purpose. Students read each line as a sentence and stop at the line break. The sentence runs until the punctuation does, and a line that spills into the next one is often the point. Naming a device is not the answer to a question about its effect. Rhyme, repetition or a stanza break is right only when the option says what it does to the poem.

Common questions about 7th grade poetry analysis

Which poems are on the sheets?: Classic poems old enough to be in the public domain, printed exactly as the poet wrote them, with the original line breaks, punctuation and capitals. Each print picks a poem at random from the grade's set, with an answer key at the end.
What do the questions ask?: Five things, one question each: the speaker or situation, what a figurative line means, the effect of a sound or structure choice like rhyme or repetition, the tone, and the theme. That covers what the seventh grade standards ask about a poem's sound and form.

Related worksheets

Ready to print one?

Want a different passage? Print again. Each print picks one of the 15.

Aligned to Common Core RL.7.4, RL.7.5. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

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