Assignment

'Select a poem of your choosing (a new poem, one we have not discussed together) and write on the following topic to write a seven hundred and fifty-word essay (750 words/2 Pages).

Here is a website that offers 100 poems you can choose from:

Question: Explain how the poem presents an idea or attitude that you personally have observed in society. For example, you may illustrate that individuals face important decisions throughout their lives by showing the decisions that individuals, such as adolescents, must face.

Be sure to review the .pdf file "Writing about Poetry" for advice.

Writing the Essay

Your 750 word (two pages) essay should have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction should do the following:

1. Interest the reader with an effective opener
2. Identify the subject, work, and author (give author's full name)
3. Introduce essay's topic
4. Define key words, if necessary
5. Present a thesis statement

The Body should do the following:

1. Have logical organization
2. Have unity - present one central idea and be coherent.
3. Provide sufficient information to explain thesis statement
4. Have paragraphs that are unified, coherent, and adequately developed with details and evidence.

The Conclusion should do the following:

1. Restate the thesis
2. Summarize the main points

When writing about literature, remember to do the following:

1. Place quotation marks around the titles of poems, short stories, essays or chapters of a book and italicize the titles of novels or plays.

2. Use the present tense. For example, when explaining what a narrator says, you would write this: The narrator describes the people gathering for the lottery: "Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes" (233). Notice that the verb describes is in the present tense.

3. Incorporate quotes into your writing by introducing the quote as I did above or by blending the quote into your sentence like this: The men discuss "planting and rain, tractors and taxes" (233).

4. Document quotes from the literary works by placing the page number from the prose work in parenthesis and the line number from a poem in parenthesis. Then write the source cited on a works cited page like this example:

Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Literature - An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry Jacobs. 5th ed.
Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998. 233-238.

5. Give your essay a title which reflects the content of your essay.

Remember that your essay should be double-spaced with your name and page in the upper right corner.

Chapter 41: Writing about a Poem- I love being a writer, What I can't stand is the paperwork by Peter De Vries.