The End and the beginning

(RL.2.4) PART A: What tone is developed throughout the poem?

• grim

• hateful

• sympathetic

• hopeful

(RL.2.4) PART B: Select the detail from the text that BEST supports your response to PART A.

• “to prop the wall,”

• “Someone, broom in hand,”

• “gawking at clouds.”

• “so the carts loaded with corpses”

(RL.2.4) What is the impact of the repetition of the word “Someone” throughout the poem?

• It draws attention to the hope of those who survived the war.

• It emphasizes the individual impacts the war had on the survivors.

• It conveys the sense of confusion of those who did not live through the war.

• It explains the contrast between those who were victims of the war and those who survived.

(RL.2.5) PART A: How does the author use structure to convey a sense of tension in the poem?

• By using a shift in the poem to show the conflict between those who remember the devastation of war and those who do not know about the suffering.

• By foreshadowing the ending of the war and the many casualties in the first stanza.

• By utilizing flashbacks to capture the perspective of someone who has lived through the war.

• By using multiple narrators to describe the differing perspectives of those who lived through the war.

(RL.2.5) PART B: Select the detail from the text that BEST supports your response to PART A?

• “After every war / someone has to tidy up.” (Stanza 1)

• “All the cameras have gone / to other wars.” (Stanza 5)

• “But others are bound to be bustling nearby / who’ll find all that / a little boring.” (Stanza 7)

• “From time to time someone still must / dig up a rusted argument / from

(RL.2.6) What cultural experience is conveyed in the poem?

• The cultural experience is that of someone who wants to forget the suffering of the war.

• The cultural experience is that of someone who has heard about the devastation of war but did not experience it themselves.

• The cultural experience is that of someone who wants to learn about the tragedies of the war in order to prevent it from happening again.

• The cultural experience is that of someone who has lived through the aftermath of war but recognizes that society will move on and forget the suffering.

(R.L.2.6) Select the detail from the text that BEST supports your response to PART A.

• “Things won’t pick/themselves up, after all.” (Stanza 1)

• “Someone has to trudge/through sludge and ashes,/through the sofa springs,/the shards of glass,/the bloody rags.” (Stanza 3)

• “The bridges need to be rebuilt,/the railroad stations, too./Shirtsleeves will be rolled/to shreds.” (Stanza 6)

• “Those who knew/what this was all about/must make way for those/who know little./And less than that./And at last nothing less than nothing.” (Stanza 9)