OVERVEIW:

 

We have worked a lot with poetry this year, focusing especially on the poetry of John Keats and Adrienne Rich.  These poets are very different; one is a male poet who was from Victorian England and was influenced by the Romantic Movement, the other is a female poet who deals with contemporary issues, especially the roles of women.  You will need to pick the poet who has “moved” you to think more deeply about yourself or the world we live in and write a 1400 to 1600 word compare/contrast essay examining the poems in relation to each other while at the same time taking into account the cultural, philosophical, and biographical information we learned in class.

 

ASSIGNMENT:

 

For this essay you will need to select 3 or more poems by one of the poets and compose an essay that includes the following:

 

1. Primary Source Quotations from each of the poems

2. Secondary Source Quotations from the letters and essays compiled in the anthology:

                        * site these sources in the following way (Hunter, page #)

3. Supplementary Secondary Source Quotations from Ebsco:

                        * site these sources in the following way (Author, page #)

4. Bibliography

 

SUGGESTED ORGANIZATION PATTERN:

 

Introduction:

                1. Hook (no rhetorical questions allowed!)

                2. Background

                                a. Poet (biography)

                                b. Cultural movements

                                c. Philosophy

                3. Transition

                4. Thesis

 

Body:

 

1. Explicate A       

2. Explicate B

3. Explicate C

4. Discuss similarities

                    between A,B, and C

5. Discuss differences

                    between A,B, and C

 

Conclusion:

                1. Brief summary of points

                2. Significance of the poetry

 

 

ASSESSMENT:

 

Your essay will be graded using the IB rubric we used for the essays on The Odyssey, but an extra 10 point component will be added for the bibliography.  The rough-draft workshop will be worth 20 points, the final draft will be worth 120 points, and any student with less than a 70%, or 84 points, will need to workshop their essay with me and re-write the essay.  I will still be curving the grade 10%.  I’m looking forward to reading your essays; good luck!!