I would say that when reading poetry, I tend to have a hard time analyzing the tone of the poem. I find it difficult sometimes to get the overall feeling of a poem without actually hearing it read out loud. For example, in John Donne's poem, "A valediction: forbidding mourning," I thought the tone seemed to be longing, yet optimistic. The question regarding tone in the diagnostic test said that the tone was, "sanguine," or cheerful. It worried me that I was pretty far off. I also struggled with some of the sample questions regarding tone and feeling in the poetry section in Peterson's AP English.
I find it especially difficult to figure out the tone when there is humor or sarcasm involved. Sometimes the sarcasm goes over my head, especially when a poem is satirizing the way other poetry is written. I hope that throughout this year I can become better at analyzing the tone of the poems I read.
Your analysis of your experience with Peterson is very insightful--I hope that you're finding that our work in class is already helping with some of the areas that you identified as having been issues when you took the diagnostic and when you were working on poetry.
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