Assignment One
Analysis of a Poem

Objective

To construct a persuasive argument about the meaning of a poem from the McClatchy collection that is on the syllabus for this class. The argument should be based on a close reading of the text in question. Close reading is a skill that will help you in subsequent assignments for this class.

Procedure

1. Choose one poem from the McClatchy Collection that is on the class syllabus.

2. Take notes including specific details in the poem that explain its meaning and significance. Such details include word choice, comparison/contrast, imagery, punctuation, rhyme, meter and anything else the author has used in order to make his or her meaning clear to an audience. (It may not be possible to find an example of each of these elements.) Focus on those that are the most useful in explaining the meaning of the poem.

3. Formulate a thesis statement summing up the meaning and importance of the chosen poem. This thesis will undoubtedly change as you write your paper, but at least it will give you a starting point. A good thesis is arguable rather than obvious.

4. Write a draft of your argument about the chosen poem. Refer to specific words and phrases in the poem in order to support the points in your argument.

5. Bring a word-processed, correctly formatted draft of this paper to class on October 12th, 2010 for peer editing. Include the entire poem at the top of the first page (not required if the poem is over 35 lines long).

6. After considering feedback you received from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper.

7. Proofread your draft to identify and correct spelling and grammatical errors.

8. Turn in the completed final draft along with a peer-edited working draft in class on October 19th, 2010.

Close Reading

Close reading means paying careful attention to details in a written work. Since you will be looking more closely at this poem than most people who read it, your paper can offer perspectives on its meaning that will engage your audience challenging its expectations. In analyzing a poem, you might ask yourself the following questions:

What, literally, takes place in the poem?

Who speaks in this poem? To whom?

How has the poet arranged ideas in this poem? What is the stanza structure? Is there traditional rhyme and/or meter? How do line breaks function in this poem to convey its meaning?

How is this poem different from any other poem that we have studied?

Does the author use any imagery in making his or her point? The most common forms of imagery include metaphor, simile, personification and symbol.

Does the author allude to any other works of literature? The Bible is one common source of allusions in early American literature and it is often worthwhile to consult a Bible for the original verse or verses.

What will make this paper interesting to an audience consisting of your classmates, your teacher and yourself? You will want to tell them something new—that would not otherwise have occurred to them after reading this poem.

Remember: A close reading of a poem is not the same thing as a summary of the poem. A close reading provides much more insight into what the poem means and gets beyond the obvious interpretations of it. Resist the temptation to let the structure of the poem determine the organization of your analysis of it.

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 the poem (i. e., that you could not write about any other poem).

   Example:

   The Red Wheelbarrow
   William Carlos Williams

   so much depends
   upon
   a red wheel
   barrow
   glazed with rain
   water
   beside the white
   chickens.

   NOT AN ARGUABLE THESIS: This is a poem about a wheelbarrow and some chickens.

   ARGUABLE THESIS: In this poem, William Carlos Williams uses stanza breaks to turn his poem into a three-part painting.

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 appeals to the reader's senses though its references to colors and textures.
   2. The rainwater in the middle stanza structurally and aesthetically separates the wheelbarrow from the chickens.
   3. The first stanza serves as a seemingly neutral introduction to the images that follow.
   4. The poem's sense only becomes clear through a comparison to the visual arts.

3. MLA format means you should include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:

   Williams, William Carlos. "The Red Wheelbarrow." The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume D. Sixth Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. 1271. Print.

   Well, that is an accurate reference for the sample poem. Here is another reference from the McClatchy Collection that may be more useful to you:

   Kinnell, Galway. "The Bear." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Second Edition. Ed. J. D. McClatchy. New York: Vintage, 2003. 297-300. Print.

4. Some grammatical tips:

5. a. 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: Rainwater glazes the wheelbarrow.
   (Note structure: subject/verb/object)

   PASSIVE VOICE: The wheelbarrow is glazed with rainwater.
   (Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)

   ACTIVE VOICE: Rainwater glazed the wheelbarrow.

   PASSIVE VOICE: The wheelbarrow was glazed with rainwater.
   (Passive voice can exist in any verb tense.)

   Note that William Carlos Williams chose to use the passive voice in order to describe this wheelbarrow. You will see passive voice in many places. It is important to learn what it is, how to use it properly and when not to use it.

6. 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.

7. 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 "d". You should also italicize titles of books (even in parenthetical references and lists of works cited) and foreign-language words like Bildungsroman or sine qua non.

8. The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it.

9. 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.