Description
Instructions
Purpose: This assignment will enable you to discover a poet's use of poetic devices. You will conduct a close reading of a poem and discuss the poet's use of these devices in his or her structuring of the form and composing of the content. Applying a close reading and composing a literary analysis will prepare you for the many texts that you will read, summarize, and discuss in the workplace.
Task:
- Choose one of the Poetry Selections from this Unit - you can certainly choose the same poem you started to analyze in your Discussion, but you don't have to. Your analysis might, however, benefit from the feedback you received in the Discussion, as well as the posts and responses of your classmates.
- You will closely read your chosen poem, considering its structural elements, patterns of figurative language, and other literary elements.
- Read and reread the poem; by paying attention to the varied features of a poem, you will build an interpretation of the poem’s meaning.
- See the Interpretation vs. Analysis, How to Approach the Analysis of a Poem, The Four Modes of Approaching a Poem, and the Explication pages, as well as the Sample Poetry Analysis using Frost's "The Road Not Taken" for assistance.
- Take notes and use your notes to create an outline of textual evidence that points to the same or a similar conclusion. Additionally, use a scholarly source, either the one you cited and discussed in your Unit 2 Annotated Bibliography or another scholarly article, to help support your analysis of the devices and evidence.
- Use this outline to develop your working thesis. You can then use the guidelines on the Starting Your Poetry Analysis Essay page to write your introductory paragraph.
- Read/review this Purdue OWL link on Close Reading of Poetry and this overview of how to write about poetry to help you develop your remaining paragraphs.
- Draft your concluding paragraph, in which you will restate your thesis in a slightly different way (for example, possibly relating it to other elements of the poem, the author's work, or other poems).
- Use MLA formatting for your paper (see https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_general_format.html), and include intext citations, as well as a "Works Cited" page (see https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_page_basic_format.html), following MLA formatting procedures. Include citation information for both your primary work (your poem) and your scholarly source.
- Leave time to submit your draft to Free Tutoring at Tutor.com for review. Your tutor can help with thesis and content development, organization, grammar, and mechanics. Utilize this free service to write the best draft possible on this major assignment.
- Don't forget that you can submit your draft to Tutor.com multiple times during the revision process.
- Submit your final paper in Turnitin, OR in the assignment dropbox, according to your instructor's preference. Should you use Turnitin, make sure to take a screenshot of the confirmation screen once you upload your paper.
Criteria on Which You Will be Graded:
- The specificity and development of your thesis
- Your supporting claims, logic, and organization
- The quality of your writing, to include paragraph development and organization: topic sentences, conclusions, transitions, etc. See Starting Your Poetry Analysis Essay
- Your engagement with the text (how you explain your examples, your choice of supporting quotations, your use of a scholarly source to help support your analysis)
- Format: You are required to use MLA style for all writing assignments. Proper MLA citation and a correctly formatted Works Cited page (12-point font, Times New Roman, double spacing, Last name and page number on each page, etc.). Please refer to the Purdue Online Writing Lab for MLA formatting and style guide. Upload your paper to the Unit 2 Essay: Analysis of a Poem assignment module (click on "Assessments" in the GoView Menu, and click on "Assignments" in the dropdown box) in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format (not .pdf, .odt, or .pages).
Explanation & Answer
Attached. Please let me know if you have any questions or need revisions.
Surname 1
Student’s Name
Instructor’s Name
Course
Date
Poem Analysis: Let America Be America Again
Interpretation and Analysis
Summary
The poem was written at a time when he was going through a rough patch in his life. It
was penned in 1935 while he was on a train journey from New York City to Ohio to visit his
ailing mother. Pressed by pressure from his recent personal experiences and worried about his
mother’s health, he embraced writing in an attempt to reflect on the struggles he endured as a
budding writer during the devastating effects of the Great Depression that America was
experiencing at the time (Feregj & Chaddadi, 2017). The poem was a plea for the re-emergence
of the true American spirit which seemed to have been lost.
The speaker introduces the poem with a clarion call to his countrymen to make America
the country it once was, where freedom and opportunity for all was the mantra. The tone of the
poem then shifts to a sense of disillusionment as the persona points out that the American Dream
has always been an illusion as it never came to be, citing his personal experience which is
representative of many lower-class Americans. The persona intimates that there has never been
equality in America and that the American Dream has always been a lie perpetuated under a false
sense of patriotism. He laments the oppression meted on the under...
