GUIDELINES:
1.Find a poem (or song) that inspires, motivates or encourages you in terms of your every-day life.
2. Your thesis statement should answer the question posed at the top of this paper: “In America today, how can poetry be of value to us in our every-day lives?” Use the poem that you analyze to prove that this statement is true.
3. Begin and end your essay by reflecting on how poetry might be useful in everyday life.
4. Write an analysis of this poem to include in your essay. Consider the following questions: What is the poem about? What is the poem’s main message/theme? In the analysis part of your essay, you must not only state the poem’s theme but also identify three (3) poetic devices and how they are used by the poet to reveal the poem’s message/theme. Your Literature to Go textbook has definitions of poetic devices that will help you write this part of your essay.
5. Be sure to share how the poem is meaningful to you, personally, in your essay.
6. Use at least three secondary sources to write your essay. PRINT these sources, and ANNOTATE them and put them in your final draft folder. Support your argument with evidence from research by reading about and quoting from articles/secondary sources about
-the poet’s life (find biographies)
-critical analysis of the poem (read criticism)
-the real-world issue expressed in the poem (research, for example, the American
dream, loneliness, corporate greed, healthy relationships, etc.)
7. Carefully consider what the REAL-WORLD issue is in the poem as a topic to research and to find support for your argument. In the past, students have found poems that address the following issues: unfair working conditions, income inequality, corporate greed, automation in the workplace, sweatshops, working class struggles, poetry and the working class, the American dream. (These all work as search terms if your poem addresses any of these issues).
8. Essay Length: 3-5 pages, plus a Works Cited page .
