Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Jesuit priest, Greek scholar, and, in his spare time, a highly original poet. His 1877 poem “Pied Beauty” exemplifies his style. The poem is framed as a prayer-like devotional, and it unfolds in a stream of subtle rhymes and surprising rhythms. The poem is also a master class in visual attention and description. Hopkins offers readers a series of vibrant images that illustrate the meaning of “pied beauty.”

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

About This Document

The Owl Eyes Imagery activity gives students an opportunity to practice identifying and analyzing imagery. Imagery within a text creates a sensory experience that can connect readers to a text’s setting, atmosphere, or overall aesthetic. Studying imagery will help students understand how narrators or principal characters feel. The main components of this worksheet include the following:

• A brief introduction to the text
• A handout on types of imagery with examples from classic texts
• A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
• Selected examples of imagery from the text

In completing this worksheet, students will learn to identify and analyze different kinds of imagery in order to develop close reading skills and identify the effect imagery has on their reading experience.