Assignment One
Poetry Analysis

Objective

To analyze a poem and to make a persuasive case for your interpretation of its meaning and significance.

Overview

The poems we have studied are difficult to understand at first, but they definitely reward close consideration. Read through the chosen poem several times. Look up any words that (a) you do not know and/or (b) that might have complex alternative meanings that will expand interpretive possibilities.

Though you will have endless ideas in your notes about the meaning of the poem, narrow them down to a few that are particularly interesting and persuasive. Ground your conclusions about the poem's meaning in specific details from the poem. Use quotations from the poem to support your points, as well as individual words. Discuss structure as well as content.

Poems to Choose From

• Langston Hughes, "Afro-American Fragment" (165)
• Rudyard Kipling, "Mandalay" (93-94)
• Marianne Moore, "The Fish" (55-56)
• Theodore Roethke, "Dolor" (272)
• (If you would like to write about a different poem from this class, please let me know.)

Procedure

1. Identify the important ideas, structural qualities, images, etc. that make this poem what it is. Brainstorm possible meanings and useful details.

2. After deciding which details from the poem are the most distinctive and interesting to you, formulate a thesis statement about what the poem means. This thesis may change as you write your paper, and that is fine.

3. Write a draft of your argument about the passage. Refer directly to specific words and phrases in the chosen poem in supporting your argument.

4. Bring a word-processed, properly formatted draft to class on September 27 for peer editing.

5. Revise your draft after that class. Consider the feedback you have received from your classmate as well as your ideas as you rework your argument.

6. Having completed your revisions, proofread your paper. Watch out for typos, incorrect punctuation and other problems. Do not hesitate to consult a style manual if you have questions (Keys for Writers is one style manual that is easy to find on the UMD campus, but there are numerous others that will work just as well.)

7. If you wish, sign up to consult with me about this draft in a student conference.

8. Turn in the completed final draft and peer-edited working draft on October 4 in class.

Writing Tips

I have based the following writing tips on common difficulties that students encounter when writing papers for this class.

1. Develop an arguable and interesting thesis statement that applies directly to poem (i. e., that you could not write about any other poem).

   Example:

   ARGUABLE THESIS: In his poem "The Hollow Men," T. S. Eliot uses primitive chants to argue that the modern world is falling away from its monotheistic ideals.

   NOT AN ARGUABLE THESIS: T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" uses images of stones to make its point.

2. Organize your argument around this thesis statement. Think of between two and four sub-points and structure your argument around them.

   Sample Outline (for the above thesis):

   1. The poem includes several images of decay.
   2. The chants of the opening two lines and the nursery rhymes in Part V lack a clear, reassuring meaning.
   3. The poem links decay to loss of substance.

3. Include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:

   Eliot, T. S. "The Hollow Men." The Premiere Book of Major Poets. Ed. Anita Dore. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1970. pp. 260-263.

4. Some grammatical tips:

   1. Commas. These are tricky little bits of punctuation, and your best bet is to look them up in a style manual. All the same, there are two things I should mention.

      First, a comma is a very fragile, spindly, little thing, and it is not strong enough to string two grammatically complete sentences together all by itself. When you use a comma for this purpose, it is called a comma splice.

      Example:

      WRONG: Maurice robbed the bank, Sheila drove the getaway car.

      CORRECT: Maurice robbed the bank, and Sheila drove the getaway car.

      ALSO CORRECT: Maurice robbed the bank. Sheila drove the getaway car.

      Second, if the first word of your sentence is not the subject of the sentence, then it is a good idea to use a comma to separate the subject from whatever precedes it. If it only one word precedes the subject, then this rule is optional, but a whole phrase really does need a comma after it before you get on with the rest of the sentence.

      Example:

      WRONG: In the last days of May I fell into a well.

      CORRECT: In the last days of May, I fell into a well.

      OPTIONAL: Certainly you can understand where I am coming from.

      OR: Certainly, you can understand where I am coming from.

   2. Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.

      Example:

      ACTIVE VOICE: Ginger eats spaghetti. (Note structure: subject/verb/object)

      PASSIVE VOICE: Spaghetti is eaten.

      (Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)

       

      ACTIVE VOICE: Ginger ate spaghetti.

      PASSIVE VOICE: Spaghetti was eaten.

      (Passive voice can exist in any verb tense.)

   3. Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace they're with they are and replace don't with do not (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions out there.

   4. Italicization is the best way to signal that you are referring to a word itself and not to the thing that the word represents. Notice how I am using italicization of the terms in the following section "e". You should also italicize titles of books (even in parenthetical references and lists of works cited) and foreign-language words like je ne sais quoi.

   5. The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive form of it. Its and whose both deviate from the standard rule that we should mark possessives with an apostrophe s.

   6. A grammatically complete sentence has at least one subject and one verb. If it is missing a subject or a verb, it is a sentence fragment. Sentence fragments are sometimes acceptable, but only if you mean to use them.

Grading Standards

In grading this assignment, I will use the following criteria. Late papers will lose points according to how late they are. Papers under five pages long will lose points as well.