Your first encounter with poetry analysis. Learn how stanzas and line breaks create meaning, how to identify the speaker and dramatic situation, how to spot a volta or shift, and how simile and metaphor build comparisons that poems can't make in plain prose.
Seven course skills from the College Board CED (updated Fall 2024).
Skill 1.A
The Speaker as Character
The speaker is not the poet. A speaker's words, the details they provide, and the choices they make reveal their perspective and biases.
Skill 3.C
Lines & Stanzas
Line and stanza breaks — and their arrangement — contribute to the development and relationship of ideas in a poem.
Skill 3.D
Contrasts & Shifts
Contrasts arise from shifts or juxtapositions in focus, tone, perspective, dramatic situation, setting, or imagery — shifts may be signaled by a word, a structural convention, or punctuation.
Skill 5.B
Word Choice
How specific words and phrases function — antecedents and referents, ambiguity, repetition for emphasis, and alliteration.
Skill 6.A
Simile
A simile uses "like" or "as" to liken two things, transferring traits or qualities from the comparison subject to the main subject.
Skill 6.B
Metaphor
A metaphor implies similarities between two usually unrelated things — and what gets transferred in the comparison depends on the context of its use.
Skill 7.A
Claims & Textual Evidence
Develop a paragraph-level argument about a poem: a defensible claim, supported by specific evidence from the text.
About Unit 2
Unit 2 is your introduction to poetry on the AP Lit exam — a genre that accounts for 36–45% of the multiple-choice section and one of the three FRQ prompts. Poetry analysis can feel difficult at first because poems compress language and resist direct paraphrase, but the College Board's framework gives you a reliable entry point: identify the speaker, the dramatic situation, and any shifts before you dig into figurative language.
Unit 2 focuses on the two most fundamental comparisons in poetry — simile (which uses "like" or "as") and metaphor (which implies similarity between two usually unrelated things). In both, the main subject is the thing being compared and the comparison subject is what it's compared to — and what gets transferred depends on context. Stanza form and line breaks are also tools: an enjambed line creates momentum; a hard end-stop forces the reader to pause. (Extended metaphor is developed further in Unit 5: Poetry II.)
The College Board ties Unit 2 to four of the six Big Ideas:
Big Idea: CHR
Character — the speaker of a poem functions like a character, with values, tone, and perspective
Big Idea: STR
Structure — stanzas, line breaks, and shifts organize meaning in a poem
Big Idea: FIG
Figurative Language — word choice, simile, and metaphor shift meaning from the literal to the figurative
Big Idea: LAN
Literary Argumentation — claims about a poem defended with specific textual evidence