| Select 2 or 3 real poems by real poets. No Chicken Soup. No Shel Silverstein. No Dr Suess. Some suggestions for poets: Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Nikki Giovanni, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Maya Angelou, Robert Browning, Edgar Allen Poe, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Christina Rosetti, Langston Hughes, W. H. Auden, A. E. Robinson, e. e. cummings. You should find poems about gender that you like, but also ones that you can figure out the meanings of . . . eventually. (Hint: try Poets.org or Bartleby.com/verse or a search through google.com) At the bottom of this page, I've included links to sites that explain what literary analyisis is and instructions on how to write one. |
| Poetry Interpretation Essay |
| Peel-A-Poem Essay For this assignment, you will compose a multi-paragraph essay in which you will interpret one of the poems you selected and �peeled.� The six Peel-A-Poem steps will help you with your interpretation. Your essay must include an introduction, some body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Refer to the earlier handout �MLA Guidelines� for format info. Introduction: (for extra help with the intro, click on the link on the index page) � Identify the poet � Identify the title of the poem � Try to make a personal connection to the poem � Include your one sentence paraphrase of the poem (Step 4 of Peel-A-Poem) � Include a thesis statement that states your main point (Step 6 of Peel-A-Poem) Body Paragraphs: � Interpret the poem � Do not summarize it � Do not state judgements (ie �I think this is a stupid poem�, �The poet does a wonderful job of . . . ," �I like when . . . � ) � Discuss how the poetic techniques or devices (ie: symbolism and/or figurative language) add to the meaning of the poem or contribute to what you think the main theme of the poem is. � Arrange and organize your paragraphs according to significant ideas. � Develop and discuss only one significant idea in each paragraph. � All of your significant ideas (and paragraphs) must support your thesis. Conclusion: (for extra help with the conclusion, click on the links on the index page.) � Sum up or tie up all the loose ends � Do not restate info � Provide your general response to the poem � Try to make a personal connection to the poem � Your essay should end, not stop Incorporating lines of poetry into your essay: When you quote, make sure you do so correctly--word for word, comma for comma--enclosing the quotation in quotation marks. Make sure that you introduce the quote; don't just drop it into your essay Quoting poetry is similar to quoting prose, with a few small differences. Lines of poetry are generally shorter than prose lines and they require slashes in-between to indicate line breaks. Here is an example: The opening lines of Frost�s �Fire and Ice� strike a conversational tone: �Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice� (1-2) Notice the slashes; they indicate the end of the lines. Notice that the parenthetical citation includes line. Only include the word line in after the first quote. INCORRECT: Many of Emily Dickinson�s poems are about death. �Because I could not stop for death / he kindly stopped for me� (1-2). * The above is an example of "just dropping a quote in." CORRECT: Many of Emily Dickinson�s poems are about death. For example, in one poem she writes, �Because I could not stop for death / he kindly stopped for me� (1-2). * The above is an example of correctly introducing a quote. Get creative with your introductory phrases; don�t just rely on Smith states, and according to Jones, to introduce all of your quotations. (For extra help with introducing quotations, click on the links on the index page.) |
| Extra help: Click here, here, here, here, and here for general info about writing a literary analysis. Here are a few other poems that are gender related: "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvel, "To The Author of Her Book" by Anne Bradstreet, "The Sonnet Ballad by Gwendowlyn Brooks, and One Perfect Rose by Dorothy Parker. If you'd rather read and write about a short story, here some suggested ones: "A&P" by John Updike, "The Story of An Hour" by Kate Chopin, "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and "Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway. Click here to read a sample essay. Take note of the format, the way the lines from the poems are quoted, and how the lines of the poems are interpreted, analyzed, and explained. You'll see that there is a thesis statement and that the body paragraphs, using the poems themselves, support the thesis. check back for other links, coming soon. |