A poem you can climb

Each poem is a ladder with four rungs per line: original, a plain-English gloss, your own retell of the line, and say it aloud. Pick a poem and start at line 1.

• Level 1 · First steps

  The Swing

  Robert Louis Stevenson · 12 lines · public domain

  A child on a swing, going higher and higher. Short words, one clear picture.

• Level 2 · Building

  The Owl and the Pussy-cat (stanza I)

  Edward Lear · 11 lines · public domain

  An owl and a cat sail away in a green boat. A nonsense love song — the first verse only.

• Level 2 · Building

  My Heart Leaps Up (The Rainbow)

  William Wordsworth · 9 lines · public domain

  Seeing a rainbow makes the poet's heart jump — as a child, as a man, and, he hopes, as an old man.

• Level 3 · Idiom stretch

  A Spring Song (opening)

  C. J. Dennis · 10 lines · public domain

  An Australian larrikin is lovesick and doesn't know why. Heavy Aussie slang — the gloss does the heavy lifting.

How a climb works

1. Original. Read the poet's line slowly, twice.
2. Gloss. Read what it means in plain English. Cover it and say the meaning yourself.
3. Retell. Write the line again in your own words. Yours stays on its own link.
4. Say. Read the line aloud with the say-aloud guide, then answer two check questions.

For classes: the teachers' page has prompts, a printable worksheet, and the one-lesson trial this instrument must pass.