“Orchard” is one of the signature poems of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), who herself is one of the signature poets of the imagist and modernist movements. The poem describes the speaker’s experience in a fruit orchard during the autumn harvest season. The speaker seeks to reach out to the god of the orchard, to present an offering of fallen fruit. The orchard, bees, fruit, and trees are all brought to life by H.D.’s exquisite use of sensory imagery.

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.