Reading Poetry Closely is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on reading a poem well enough to explain its structure and figures, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.10. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.
Set 17 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.
Reading Poetry Closely
RL.4.10
NameDate
Read the text, then answer the questions.
1.Read the text, then answer the questions.
Low Water
Stanza one:
Twice a day the sea walks out
and leaves the harbour standing,
the boats set down on their own keels
like birds that have stopped landing.
Stanza two:
The mud shines. Old anchors show,
a bicycle, a broken chain,
the whole forgotten underneath
made briefly plain.
Stanza three:
Then, without a sound at all,
it turns and starts to come.
The bicycle goes under first.
The harbour lifts. The boats go dumb.
1. Determine a theme of this poem and support it from the text.
2. Why does the bicycle go under first?
3. "The boats go dumb" — what does this mean?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.
The Quarry, Filled
Stanza one:
They took the hill away in carts
for ninety years, and then they stopped.
The hole they left filled up with rain
until the rain had reached the top.
Stanza two:
Now people swim where men once cut.
The water hides the ledge, the crane,
the drill-marks in the standing rock,
the tracks, the shed, the loading lane.
Stanza three:
The children diving off the edge
have never heard the word for it.
They call it "the lake". They are not wrong.
A thing becomes what people make of it.
1. "They are not wrong" — what does the poem mean by this?
2. Determine a theme of this poem and support it from the text.
3. Why have the children never heard the word for it?
LessonPrint · RL.4.10 · Set 17 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — Reading Poetry Closely
Set 17. Prints on its own sheet.
1.1. What is hidden is only briefly visible — "the whole forgotten underneath made briefly plain". 2. Because it lies lowest in the harbour, so the returning water reaches it first. 3. They stop making the noises they made aground, because they are afloat again.
2.1. That calling it a lake is true now, whatever it used to be. 2. A place is what it is used for now — "A thing becomes what people make of it." 3. Because the quarry stopped working before they were born, so it has only ever been a lake to them.
Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.