Poem : The Road Not Taken--- Robert Frost

Robert Frost believed in the power of poetry. In an essay titled ―Education by Poetry,he wrote: ―The person who gets close enough to poetry, he is going to know more about the word belief than anybody else knows.” Robert Frost must have been speaking about his own experiences with poetry, as it was a central part of his life.Robert Frost lived from 1874 – 1963. Though he was born in San Francisco, he movedback to his family’s home in New England after his father died when he was a youngboy. Both his mother and grandfather were teachers who made sure Robert read a widevariety of materials.As a young man, Frost attended Dartmouth College and Harvard, but he didn’t graduatefrom either. Instead, he worked as a farmer, an editor, and a schoolteacher. As a youngman, he wrote in his spare time, but his poems were rejected for publication. Hisfirst poem was published in 1894. Robert Frost’s work is still extremely popular today. His poems deal with simple eventsand rural settings. Often the topics and dialect are unique to the New England region.While the topics of his poems may be simple, like a road in the case of The Road NotTaken, they contain insight into human nature and life.

In this poem, students will find similarities and differences of road choices in the text to facilitate their understandings.

Summary: The speaker is in the woods and comes to a spot in the road where the road is divided. The speaker is sorry he can’t travel down both roads. He is walking down a road in a forest. The roads are divided. He has to decide which road to travel down. It is probably in the fall because he says there are yellow leaves on the road – leaves turn yellow in the spring. He can’t travel down both roads and wants to take decision. He has

to make a decision about which road to take, so he feels anxiety about making the right decision. One road will lead to another and he’ll have travelled on so far that it will be too difficult to come back to the first road. The speaker is imagining that at some time in the distant future, he’ll be telling this story about the roads and the decision. The road could mean choices the speaker has to make in life. One decision leads to another and you never really know how it’s all going to turn out until you are at ―the end of the road” or at the end of your life looking back.The poet could have meant that one wasn’t a better choice—just a different one. It could have a deeper meaning in that we never know what the other ―road” of life holds because we took a different one. Other roads could have been either better or worse—or just different. The poet may be sighing with regret because he made a poor choice; the speaker may be sighing with relief that he made a good choice. The sigh can be a positive thing or a negative thing. The reader doesn’t really know. It could mean that by choosing that road, he had a great life and it was a good decision. It could mean making that choice was the turning point in his life and maybe it wasn’t such a good decision. He really won’t know until he finishes his life. At last the poet comes to conclusion that he took the less traveled path and it really made difference for the poet.

The rhyme scheme is as follows:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, aAnd sorry I could not travel both bAnd be one traveler, long I stood aAnd looked down one as far a I could aTo where it bent in the undergrowth; bThen took the other, as just as fair, cAnd having perhaps the better claim, dBecause it was grassy and wanted wear; cThough as for that the passing there cHad worn them really about the same, dAnd both that morning equally lay eIn leaves no step had trodden black. fOh, I kept the first for another day! eYet knowing how way leads on to way, eI doubted if I should ever come back. fI shall be telling this with a sigh gSomewhere ages and ages hence: hTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I –gI took the one less traveled by, gAnd that has made all the difference. h

Graphic organizer to help you find clues about the setting of the poem.

Stanza Geographicallocation

Timeperiod

Emotionalcondition

Occupation/daily living

What I can infer from this stanza

Stanza 1 A yellow woodTwo roadsdiverged

sorry Traveller It is fall because the leaves areYellow

Stanza 2 The otherIt was grassy

It wantedwear

He took the road that had moregrass growing on it and looked likeit needed to be walked upon

Stanza 3 In the wood morning Bothequally lay

He thinks both roads are equal

Stanza 4 Two roadsdivergedIn a wood

He is inthefuture

A sighAdifference

Old man He is going to tell about hisdecision in the future, and that hisdecision made a difference

Activity Worksheet The Effective Detective1. Make a Prediction

Read the title “The Road Not Taken”I predict the poem is going to talk about

I discover the poem is actually talking about

Find Out Clues 1 Road Similarities 2 Road

Conclusion: In the poem he's looking back at a moment of choice, and reflecting on how, at that moment in the past, not knowing where the chosen path would lead, he looked forward to the future, knowing that at some point in the future he would look back with knowledge of what had ensued, and would wonder what might have happened had he made the opposite choice. The phrase "with a sigh" is deliberately ambiguous as to it being a positive or negative judgement, because his past self, looking forward to the sigh, knows the decision may ultimately be seen as significant (hence the sigh), but doesn't yet know whether it will be regretted or the opposite. By the final line, that his choice "has made all the difference", he means that although he knows not, before or after, what the difference is, the choice he made is entirely responsible for the difference between the life he has had and the life he will never know.