Poetry Question

2nd Critical Essay Assignment: Argument and Interpretation: Searching for Meaning

Length: 3-5 pages, double-spaced, size 12 font

Documentation: MLA

The theme of a text is the underlying message or philosophy that the writer is trying to share with an audience. The theme of a work is rarely stated directly, explicitly. Instead, the reader must employ higher order thinking skills to consider the various elements of a work in order to make inferences about the message. The theme of a work is the message about people, life, and the world we live in that the author wants to share with readers.

When we try to understand the theme of a work, we are attempting to better understand the human condition and articulate our unique discoveries as a result of the endeavor.

Purpose:

1. To identify, interpret, and analyze a particular message raised by a work of imaginative literature.

2. Using evidence from your primary source and secondary sources, you will make a case for your interpretation of the text’s theme.

You have options for your primary text:

you can choose from these links https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-peace-of-wild-things/ https://voxpopulisphere.com/2019/08/11/danusha-lameris-small-kindnesses/?fbclid=IwAR3e1KhAFzQ47dDLJU3qbXw3kuKg4CNJKBugYsCykEIKONm00Pukdg1xwic

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/20…

a. Select a short story or a pair of thematically related short stories to analyze. The works should be from our course study/outline be a story different from the one you used for your character focus essay.

b. Select a poem or pair of thematically related poems to analyze. The works should be from assigned reading so that your peer evaluator(s) will have easy access to the text.

c. Select a poem and a thematically related song to analyze. The poem or song may be of your choosing. You will just have to make sure to share the entire poem/song in some way with your audience.

Audience: Your audience is academic and formal. However, you may use first person “I” in the essay to carefully distinguish your ideas from your secondary sources. In fact, I encourage you to do so. However, you should avoid informal language in order to establish and maintain your credibility as a writer.

Resources: For secondary sources, You will incorporate the ideas of at least two credible, reliable, academic sources found through the MVCC Library database and/or resources.

Title: You should create a title that reflects the purpose of your essay. Avoid just using the title of the work you are investigating or the title of the assignment.

Introduction & Audience Hook: The introduction should state the subject of your essay and create enough interest so your reader will want to keep reading. Your thesis statement (which can be more than one sentence) should appear as the last sentence of your introductory paragraphs.

Body: This is where your line of reasoning comes in. Here you develop your idea using support such as evidence, quotes, claims, and explanation.Organizing the Body of the Essay

1. Spatial organization: you present the facts as they appear in the work from start to finish

2. Chronological: present the facts as they appear in the time line. Remember most fiction employs flashbacks or foreshadowing which can disrupt the flow of the narrative. This is particularly evident in “Sonny’s Blues,” and “The Things They Carried.”

*3. Organize by ascending order of importance: you use the least important evidence first, building your “case” to the most powerful evidence.

4. Coherence/Cohesion: Make sure to create logical links between your ideas. This means within and between paragraphs. You may use transitional words and phrases as reader cues to illustrate the logical movement of your thoughts.

When analyzing theme, it is important to avoid simplifying the author’s message down to a cliché. While “Never judging a book by a cover” is a wise and time-tested adage, it may unjustly simplify the complexities of a well-crafted piece of imaginative literature.