Transcript A Child Said, What is Grass?

A Child Said, What is Grass?
Taylor Wichtendahl & Karly Korbe
AP English 11 1B
Pre-Research: Characteristics of
Transcendentalism
The idea of transcendentalism to become selfreliant and self- assured. The following ideas are
used to achieve this
• To follow ones intuition rather than logic
• To break from tradition and customs to follow ones
own path
• To lack the necessity of material goods
• To become dignified through manual labor
Poem
A Child Asked, What is Grass? By Walt Whitman
Click on the picture to read the poem.
TPCASTT
• Title Before Reading: The title implies that the person will be inspecting the
meanings of a child’s question and the answers to it
• Paraphrase: A man attempts to answer the question of a young boy when
he’s unsure how to answer when he himself doesn’t know the question.
• Connotation/ Figurative Language: parallel Structure
– Or,or,or-it,it,it-and,and,and used to create rhythm
• Attitude: A very Inquisitive attitude as the poem is of never ending
questions without direct answers
• Shift: “And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves”- shifts
from wondering of grass to describing and talking of grass ( uses vignettes)
• Title After Reading: The title shows the innocence of a child and how the
adult is no longer innocent.
• Theme: When you die you are one with nature and return to the innocence
of a child you once had.
Transcendental Characteristics
• When you die you are one with nature and
equal. He refers to grass as universal to living
and dead and “beautiful uncut hair” of grass
and to be dead is to be lucky because one
would be with the grass and therefore one
with nature
• We are all comprised of the same innocence
and origins
• A child is the epitome of innocence
Make the Connection
Even though we are all different and expanding
with each generation, especially in this day and
age, we all began from the same roots and same
innocence.