7.5–Assignment Sheet Poetry Essay
ENGL 350, ESSAY 2
POETRY ANALYSIS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Analyze and interpret texts through close reading and writing
- Develop critical thinking and reading skills
- Exhibit skills in writing with detail and focus
- Center an essay around a thesis
- Apply effective personal writing processes, including invention, drafting, and critical revision strategies
THE BASICS
Please compose the following:
- Length: A 3-6 page thesis-driven Analysis Essay that analyzes a poem that we have covered together in class.
- Focus:: In analyzing the poem, continue to use the skill of close reading. That means to go directly to the text—the words the poet writes or the images the artist draws. Then, use such up-close analysis of the text to further your overarching ideas.
- Remember to pay attention to form: Your essay should also consider formal elements such as rhyme, line breaks, meter, figures of speech, etc. That said, such formal analyses will probably take up only a small amount of your essay and should always be connected to larger thematic points. Remember that you are writing a paper that analyzes a particular idea, theme, or issue and thus do not feel pressure to present extensive work with poetic form/meter. Again, when you do so, keep the formal considerations short, precise, and in service of your larger point.
- Your overall aim: As with Essay 1, your aim is to convince readers that you have a reasonable analysis based on a thoughtful, detailed, and focused reading of the text.
- Use MLA Style: Be sure to use MLA style for the first-page heading, page numbers, in-text citations, and Works Cited page. Also make sure, ideally near the essay’s beginning, to name the author and text you are writing on.
REQUIRED LENGTH
3 pages (minimum) to 6 pages (maximum). Please note that to qualify for meeting the minimum length, essay should end no earlier than ¾ of a page down page 3. MLA Works Cited does not count toward overall length.
SECONDAY SOURCES
No secondary sources are required in this essay. Your focus should be only on the text you are explicating; thus, no secondary sources are required.
FORMATTING AND SUBMISSION
Please use double spacing, 1” margins, a standard 12-point font (Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond are recommended), and include an MLA-style heading on Page 1 of your essay. Your essay should use MLA in-text citations and should contain an MLA style Works Cited page. This Works Cited page DOES NOT count toward your overall word count. The Works Cited page must be formatted in accordance with MLA 9. See “Purdue OWL” for specifics.
GRADING
A grading rubric is posted to Blackboard. Please look at it carefully.
ABOUT DUE DATE AND LATE SUBMISSION
Your essay is due, to the relevant Bb assignment dropbox, by 11:59 p.m. on the due date. Any essay not turned in by that time will be considered late, and in accord with the syllabus, grades will drop ½ letter grade per day. Friday through Monday at 8 a.m. counts as one day. ). Any essays not turned in at all will receive a “0” grade (not a grade of “F,” but rather a “0”). No essays accepted seven days after the due date. No email copies accepted. Emailed essays will count as unsubmitted.
