“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
HS / ELA
Identity, Cause and Effect, Choice, Community
Ask students to journal for about 4-5 minutes: What is your family’s history? Where are
your ancestors from? Write facts about your parents’ and grandparents’ lives.
Distribute the text. Ask students what they anticipate this text to be like. Discuss what
they can tell about the piece from looking at it. Have them label the stanzas A,B, C, D;
and number the lines 1-5 within each stanza. Ask students to follow along as you read
the text aloud, and to underline any vocabulary terms or usage with which they are
unfamiliar.
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Robert Frost (1874-1963) was one of the most popular and critically respected
American poets of the twentieth century. He was honored frequently during his lifetime,
being named Poet laureate of Vermont, and receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. His
poetry is still widely read and quoted today.
Gather words that students identified as being unfamiliar, and list them on the
(interactive) whiteboard. Provide (or mine students for) meanings of the unfamiliar
words, and encourage them to make notes on the text about word meanings.
Ask students to look at the word “wanted” in the stanza B, line 3. How does Frost use
this word differently from the way we normally use it?
Have participants read the text again silently. Then ask them to work in pairs to identify
the dilemma of the speaker in the poem, and to make notes to the right of the text about
what this dilemma is, how the speaker feels about it, and why the decision might be
significant.
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 What is the most important word in the poem? (round robin response)
 Why is that word so important? (spontaneous discussion)
 How does the poem describe each of the two roads? How do they
compare?
 In (B 5) the the roads are described as, “worn…about the same,” and in
(C1), “both that morning equally lay.” Why could these details and
observations make the decision difficult?
 Why does the speaker (C 3) keep “the first for another day” if he or she
says at the end of the stanza (C 5), “I doubted if I should ever come
back”? What reason could the speaker have for not returning?
 Stanza D begins “I shall be telling this with a sigh/ Somewhere ages and
ages hence…” What does this suggest the speaker will do in the future,
and why with a sigh?
 What does “way leads on to way” mean (C4)? Connect your ideas to the
final two lines of the poem. What difference did the speaker’s choice
make?
 What could the two roads symbolize in your life? The woods? The
journey?
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Have students return to their writing from the Launch. Have them take notes about
ideas that they heard, read, thought during seminar related to the ideas under
discussion, and reflect on decisions in their ancestors’ lives, and the effect of those
decisions.
After reading “The Road Not Taken” and our seminar discussion, create a letter to
yourself in which you describe a difficult decision you have made. Remind yourself of
the circumstances of your decision, your process for making the decision, and reflect on
the impact this choice has made on your life today. Compare the circumstances and
weight of your decision to that of Frost, and refer to the poem in your response.
(LDC Task#:
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Invite participants to talk in pairs for two minutes to share thoughts about what the
writing task is asking and how they might respond. They should make a list of decisions
they have made, choose one decision to explore in their letters, and to select a text
reference to use in support.
Allow a few minutes for all to sketch an outline for their writing and to refine their
thinking. Provide students with an outline template or templates as necessary to
“scaffold” this stage.
Structure/Tips for Letter Writing:
 Salutation (Dear__)
 Introduction: Describe the purpose for the letter by outlining what we did in the
seminar. What did we read, discuss, and analyze?
 Describe a decision you have made. What was happening and what choices did
you have? How did you make your choice, and what impact did it have?
 Describe the speaker’s decision in “The Road Not Taken” and the impact it has
on the speaker’s life. Include observations shared in the seminar.
 Conclude your letter by comparing or contrasting your decision to the
poem. Does any of the symbolism in the poem also apply to your life and your
decision? What do you want your future self to remember about the decision or
the poem?
 Closing and signature.
Challenge all to draft their letters using the Tips for Letter Writing and their outline.
Have participants work in pairs to read their first drafts aloud to each other with
emphasis on reader as creator and editor. Listener says back one point heard clearly
and asks one question for clarification. Switch roles. Give time for full revisions resulting
in a second draft.
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Once the second draft is complete, have participants work in groups of three-four and
this time take turns reading each other’s second drafts slowly and silently, marking any
spelling or grammar errors they find. (Have dictionaries and grammar handbooks
available for reference.) Take this opportunity to clarify/reteach any specific grammar
strategies you have identified as a need. Give time for full revisions resulting in a third
and final draft.
With students’ permission, create a wordle (http://www.wordle.net/) with their collection
of letters. This wordle will demonstrate which words and ideas the students each
express in their letters. While many of the largest letters will be from the poem itself,
students may be surprised to see their classmates have similar experiences in their own
lives. (Digital copies will need to be used to create the wordle).
Emily Satterfield
National Paideia Faculty
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The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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