Eng 1102 TR
Essay Three Topics
Choose one of the topics below to write a 500-800 word due when class begins April 9. The essay should be typed in MS Word, double-spaced, with one- inch margins and 12 point font and include MLA header/running head. The essay must also be submitted to turnitin.com no later than the start of class April 9.
As with the prior lit analysis essays this semester, you should USE NO RESEARCH OF ANY KIND IN THIS ESSAY. Create your own analysis; do not replicate that of others. And as always, evidence of plagiarism will result in a zero (-0-) for the assignment.
Your essay should include an introduction paragraph in which you present a clear thesis. Because you are discussing poems, you should mention the title and the author of each in the introduction. Your essay should have several well-developed body paragraphs, with the number depending on the scope of your discussion – but three would be the minimum number. Finally, the conclusion paragraph should adequately summarize the paper without being repetitive.
Like all essays on literature, this essay should be written in the present tense, utilize literary terminology and employ specific details from the poems to support your main points - quoting words, phrases, or possibly whole lines of poems. After all direct quotes, put the line number(s) citing the quote at the end of the sentence in parenthesis. If your quote is more than one line of poetry, use a forward slash to separate each line [Example: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood” (1-3). ] Likewise, poem titles are put in quotation marks, unless they are epic in length, and we are not studying any such poems in this course. Tips for analyzing poetry may be found at this online handout. Also, remember to use the information in the guidelines handout given earlier on literary writing as well as the handout on literary analysis.
-Choose any definition of the word “poetry” we have discussed in class, and analyze how that definition is exemplified by any two poems on our syllabus to date. We first discussed four possible definitions of this genre of literature on our first day of the poetry unit in class – one from Frost, one from Dickinson, one from a textbook and one from Patterson.
-Choose any two poems from our syllabus to date and discuss their poets’ use of sensory imagery to convey theme and tone, paying attention to visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and gustatory images. Remember that sensory imagery can be both literal – such as that used in establishing setting, and symbolic – such as that used to represent something other than itself.