Poetry Paper

English 1102

 

DIRECTIONS

 

  • Select one of the poems from the syllabus.

  • Review the PowerPoint "How to Write about a Poem" posted in D2L under "Content."

  • Having read and annotated the poem, focus on a specific theme in it and explore it in mandatory 500-600 words (5 ¶s in a mature font).

  • Choose three words of phrases from the poem that represent the specific theme, one per argument paragraph.

  • Make sure that your thesis adheres to one of the three options from the thesis handout (link). The first part of the thesis will be specific to the poem (something explicit from the poem) and the second part will go beyond the poem itself to show something more about concrete examples from life nowadays (do not present generic social/societal commentary), while broadening our understanding of the poem itself. Therefore, this paper is to analyze the poem while relating it to specific examples from life nowadays. MANDATORY ESSAY ORGANIZATION (link).

  • Italicize, bold or underline the thesis statement.

  • The first part of each of the argument paragraphs will analyze the text, and the second part will relate that analysis to precise examples from life nowadays (link).

  • The introductory ¶ should have only two sentences, one of which will be the thesis statement.

  • The paper cannot earn more than 60% without the required organization and thesis.

  • No title page is necessary, but title your essay in an original manner (not the title of the poem) and put your name on the paper in the upper left corner.

  • This is to be your own, original work, without referring to any outside sources or commentaries, but this is not an "I" paper.

  • Consulting any outside sources or resources might result in forfeiting credit for this assignment.

  • Use present tense.

  • Do not use "you."

  • Please do not organize your paper based on the original organization of the poem, stanza by stanza.

  • Do not focus on the literary devices used by the author (e.g., diction, tone, irony, symbolism) but rather on the actual content.

  • Include a brief heading with your name, assignment, date and course.

  • Include the word count at the top of the paper.

  • To be eligible for credit, the completed assignment MUST meet all of the above conditions. If any requirement from the prompt is not met, the assignment will be ineligible for credit. 

  • Only the first submission of your choice of ONE of the major papers is eligible for credit (choose Fiction, Drama or Poetry).

  • Submit your final draft through the D2L Brightspace assignments dropbox under Poetry by the due date.

  • Detailed feedback about the submitted paper will be provided in D2L.

  • The content of the paper will be graded based on its organization, thesis, paragraph structure, quality of arguments, analysis strength and lack of summary. Each type (not each occurrence) of major grammatical errors (e.g., run-on, pronoun-antecedent agreement, fragment, misplaced modifier, parallelism, verb form, subject-verb agreement, 3 x spelling errors) will equal a deduction of 10 points.

  • As always, if you have any questions, please email me at cperkowski@gordonstate.edu or post a question in the D2L forum.

    Texts from our textbook posted in D2L to choose from:
    Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps up When I Behold
    Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
    Carroll, Jabberwocky
    Rich, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
    Browning, My Last Duchess
    Roethke, My Papa's Waltz
    Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow
    Blake, The Chimney Sweeper
    Piercy, Barbie Doll
    Frost, The Road Not Taken

    • Dickinson, A word is dead
    Dickinson,     I like to see it lap the Miles
    Dickinson, My life had stood – a Loaded Gun

    Dickinson, "Hope" is the thing with feathers –
     Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork
    Dickinson, Success is counted sweetest
    Dickinson, Wild nights – Wild nights!
     Dickinson, I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
    Dickinson, I'm Nobody! Who are you?
    Dickinson, I heard a Fly buzz – when I died
    Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death
    Dickinson, Tell all the truth but tell it slant

    Dickinson, This is my letter to the world
    Shakespeare, Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day
    Plath, Metaphors
    Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'
    Tennyson, Break, Break, Break
    Parker, Resume
    Bogan, Medusa
    Sexton, Cinderella
    Shelley, Ozymandias
    Hughes, I, Too
    Hughes, Harlem
    Brooks, the mother
    Browning, How Do I Love You?
    Donne, The Flea
    Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain
    Plath, Daddy
    Shakespeare, My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun