English 1B, Introduction to Literature

Dale T. Jensen, Instructor

A Fully Accredited Online Course Offered By Barstow College

Poetry Paper

Your third literary paper will be on poetry. You may select any poem from the list in the weekly outline; the link is on the class homepage. It does not matter if we have read and discussed the poem already or if it appears in future lessons.

You need to say something intelligent about the poem you select. PLEASE DO NOT JUST PARAPHRASE THE POEM!  You need to review two essays in the text for this writing assignment.

The first is an explication of Dylan Thomas' "Do not Go Gentle into That Dark Night," pages 49-52.  An explication takes the poem line by line and analyzes what the poet is saying as well as how the poet says it.  You are demonstrating your your ability to understand the meaning of the poem as well as the poem's literary elements such as verse form, meter, rhyme, figurative language, etc.

The second example is a comparison/contrast essay that looks at Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" and Catherine Davis' "After a Time," pages 60-63.  Notice that this essay develops a thesis and then backs it up with proof in the body paragraphs.

Here are a few websites that have posted essays on poems that we have already covered:

"Birches" by Robert Frost

http://www.helium.com/items/1319539-analysis-of-frsts-poem-birches

 "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/handouts/marvell.html

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/cavanaugh.htm

These essays are just to give you ideas about writing your essay. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE! YOU WILL FAIL THIS CLASS IF YOU DO. I am aware what is available on the Internet and can easily do a search to determined if the your submission is copied.

Be sure to included the following in your paper when you type it up in your word processing program:

1. Create a title for your essay.

2. Write an introduction that gets the reader’s attention. State the title of the poem and the author’s name. Write a thesis that argues for your interpretation and analysis. Don’t write an announcement ("I am writing about. . ." or "My essay is about. . .").  If you are writing a poem explication, you do not necessarily write a thesis

3. The multi-paragraph body must support your thesis. Here you can use short quotations to prove your points. Every idea in the body must support the thesis.

4. In the conclusion reword your thesis and summarize your main points. End with a clincher (a strong memorable statement).

5. The length should be between 500-700 words. Use your word processing to count the words. It is just as bad to overwrite as it is to underwrite. Writing errors will lower your score, so proofread carefully and do spell check.

6. When you are finished with your essay, put a few extra spaces between the paragraphs to prevent your paragraphs from being run together when I receive it.

7. You must use the feedback form to submit your paper. Your submission will automatically be labeled so it can easily be sorted. Just copy, paste, and submit.

Use your real name, not your username or password in the feedback form. If you do not type in your e-mail address correctly, you will not get your graded assignment returned. 

By submitting this assignment, you affirm  that you wrote it for this class and allow it to undergo a plagiarism search.  Plagiarism is punishable by failure in this course.

If you have any questions on this assignment, contact me by e-mail. Put HELP!!! in the subject line. Sometimes I get over 100 e-mails a day. I look at the HELP!!! messages first. Good luck!

Happy Reading and Writing!

Mr. Jensen