For this EDU 290H assignment, I designed a PowerPoint presentation on Robert Frost. I covers his biography and a sample of his work. The information for my presentation was found in the Park Library on the fourth floor. It is a textbook named Traditions in Literature. I also found photographs online. The references for the photos are next to the images on the slides, while the citations for the textbooks are found at the end of the presentation. Before I made the PowerPoint, I developed a planning document, which includes the type of information I was going to insert into the presentation. When finished, I uploaded the PowerPoint presentation to slideshare.net, and via slideshare, I embedded the PowerPoint presentation onto my Wikispace Page.

1. American Poet:
Robert Frost

2. Biography: Personal Life
• 1874-1963
• Born in San Francisco
• At eleven, moved to Massachusetts
• Married at twenty
• Studied at Harvard
Robert and Elinor Frost at Plymouth, New
Hampshire, 1911
Image Credit:
http://www.frostfriends.org/chronology.ht
ml

3. Biography: Work Life
• Number of jobs before farming
• Farm was a failure
• Only local newspapers accepted his writings
The Frost farm, where the family
lived from 1900-1911.
Image Credit:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps
/poets/a_f/frost/exhibit.htm

4. Biography: Beginning as a poet
• Poems set in New England
• Settings at farms or rural areas

5. Biography: Progressing as a poet
• Moved to New England
• Offered collected works to publisher
• A Boy’s Will – 1913
• North of Boston -1914
• Famous
• Home in 1915
Frost's manuscript of a poem from A Boy's Will
(1915)
Image Credit:
http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/frost/english
/images/willms1.jpg

6. Biography: Succeeding as a poet
• One of most popular American poets
• Pulitzer Prize – 1st in 1924
• Read poem at JFK inauguration – 1961
Reciting “The Gift Outright” at John
F Kennedy’s inauguration ceremony.
Image Credit:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedai
lymirror/2011/01/john-f-kennedys-
inauguration-in-pictures.html

7. An example of Robert Frost’s poetry…
“The Secret Sits”
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

8. Remember!
Geometric Principle:
• Circle (“ring”)
• Equal distance from center (“middle”)
• No one is nearer to “Secret”
Alliteration:
• Use of similar consonants

9. Questions!
Question #1: Who are the “we” mentioned in line 1?
Answer #1: People in general.

10. Questions Continued:
Question #2: Describe the personification in line 2.
Answer #2: The “Secret” is personified as sitting in the
middle of a ring of dancers and knowing.

11. Questions Continued:
Question #3: How might the poem be a description of life?
Answer #3: People constantly seek to know the “meaning
of it all,” but no one can get closer to this “Secret” than
anyone else.

12. Citations:
Hogan, R. J., Miller, Jr., J. E., McDonnell, H. (1991). Traditions
in literature: Teacher’s planbook. Glenview, IL: Scott,
Foresman and Company.
Hogan, R. J., Miller, Jr., J. E., McDonnell, H. (1991). Traditions
in literature: Teacher’s annotated edition. Glenview,
IL: Scott, Foresman and Company.