Cendrowski LIT 2000 Personal, Cultural, and Critical Essay #1 in response to a poem of your choice (from our reading list) If you were to search for the name Alexander Cendrowski in the dictionary, and miraculously that dictionary were to actually contain an entry for that not-common name, it would probably look something like this: Alexander Cendrowski proper noun. 1. A human being who was born on a beach and has lived close to large bodies of water for his entire life. “That Alexander Cendrowski ain’t right in the head… always asking to dive off my dock and then getting right out to do it again.” 2. A writer, primarily of words that form strings that make sentences. Frequently, these words are lies (see: fiction, n.). “Alexander Cendrowski always submits to our literary magazine— and we always reject him.” The issue with dictionaries and definitions, of course, is that they can never fully capture a thing’s essence. Sure, they can approximate objects and words, but the true self is rarely so easily captured. Neither of the above definitions, for instance, address my heritage (half-polish, half-adopted), the culture in which I was raised (suburban tourist trap-land), or the social climate I matured in (from patriarchal masculinity’s pressures to feminist masculinity’s acceptance). The key to this essay will be for you to push past easy definitions and glance inward constantly, keeping track of your biases and thoughts as they relate to your culture, society, and critical-world-view. Your guide will be to focus the essay on the intersection between yourself and at least one poem we’ve read so far. The central question to ask yourself and answer is: “How have I been shaped, consciously and unconsciously, socially and critically, to receive this poem? And what does that show me about myself (and about the poem)?” Use textual and personal examples to support your claims and ideas. And try to avoid writing solely about your education—you are so much more than students in an academy. You are living, breathing people. Cendrowski LIT 2000 PCC Essay #1 Points of Evaluation Evidence: • Your essay invokes passages from the poem and/or adjacent critical texts to support your central ideation; this evidence should direct and important to the essay • Your essay draws from your real-life experience/emotion and reflects that experience/emotion onto the text to create a critical web of literary understanding Effortful completion: • Your essay contains a complete idea and analysis of the intersections between your life and the “life” of the poem. You should expect this essay to average around 3 pages, double-spaced. 2% 2% 1%
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