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THE LANGUAGE ARTS MAGAZINE
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Poetry: “Haunted House” • Skill: Analyzing Poetry
Directions: Reread Valerie Worth’s poem “Haunted House” on page 9 of the October 31, 2011, issue of Scope.
Refer to the poem as you answer the questions below. (Use a separate sheet of paper for your answers.) These
questions do not have right or wrong answers; they are about how you interpret the poem!
11. Does the poet use simple or complex language? What do you notice about the lengths of the lines?
About the length of the poem?
12. Consider the description of the house in the first stanza. Does this stanza suggest that the house is
full of belongings and that people are currently living there, or does it suggest that the house is empty
and has not been used for some time? Explain your answer with specific details from the poem.
13. The poet describes the house’s stairs as “aching” and its doors as having “gone stiff at the hinges.”
What literary device is the poet using? Besides a house, what do these phrases make you think of?
What is the poet describing besides the house?
14. The poet writes that the former owners of the house are “leaning in the closet like that curtain
rod,” and “sleeping on the cellar shelf like this empty jelly jar.” She could have written “a curtain
rod” and “an empty jelly jar,” but instead she chose to write “that curtain rod” and “this empty
jelly jar.” Why do you think the poet chose to refer to a specific curtain rod and jelly jar? What does
this choice suggest about the location of the poem’s speaker and the reader? How does this choice
affect the reader’s experience?
15. Which two verbs in stanzas 3 and 4 describe what the house’s former owners are doing? What are
the qualities of the actions these verbs describe? For example, do they describe actions that are
energetic, joyful, sad, loud, etc.?
16. Consider the two objects with which the speaker compares the former owners of the house—a
curtain rod in the closet and an empty jelly jar in the cellar. What do these objects have in
common?
17. What is the speaker saying about the former owners of the house by comparing them to the curtain
rod and the jelly jar?
18. Do the dead owners of the house seem threatening or scary in any way? Explain.
19. What is the tone of this poem? In other words, what is the poet’s attitude toward the subject
matter? Is she angry? Frightened? Amused? Explain what in the poem led you to your conclusion.
10. Do you think that the ghosts of the owners are literally haunting the house—is there really a ghost
in the closet and a ghost sleeping on the cellar shelf? Or is the house “haunted” in some other way?
Explain.
Scholastic sCOPE activity • October 31, 2011
Uses: Copy machine, opaque projector, or transparency master for overhead projector. Scholastic Inc. grants subscribers of Scholastic Scope permission to reproduce this page for use in their classrooms. Copyright ©2011 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.
Visiting a “Haunted House”