“Kubla Khan” is one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s signature poems, as well as one of the most important pieces to emerge from the romantic movement in England. The poem, which supposedly arrived to Coleridge in a dream, tells of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and his palace at Xanadu. In a lively cascade of imagery, Coleridge constructs his vision of the palace while exploring the mystery of creativity.

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

About This Document

The Owl Eyes Imagery activity gives students an opportunity to practice identifying and analyzing imagery. Imagery within a text creates a sensory experience that can connect readers to a text’s setting, atmosphere, or overall aesthetic. Studying imagery will help students understand how narrators or principal characters feel. The main components of this worksheet include the following:

• A brief introduction to the text
• A handout on types of imagery with examples from classic texts
• A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
• Selected examples of imagery from the text

In completing this worksheet, students will learn to identify and analyze different kinds of imagery in order to develop close reading skills and identify the effect imagery has on their reading experience.