At the beginnig you have to read the title. The title can give a lot of information about the text, as what is the protagonist or what is the topic of the text.

After you have read the title, you have to analyse the layout:

-how many stanzas there are in the text;

-how many lines in each stanza;

-what is the rhytm of the text.

Analyze the layout is impostant because from the layout you can understand if it is a ballade or something else.

Then you should read the text almost two or three times to understand not onlythe meaning, but also what the writer wants to exprime. After which you should write the text with your own words, and then each you have to tell what are the figures of speech uses i each stanza

At the end you should say what the writer wants to exprime in the text, and what do you think about it.