McLean
Spring „12
English 4
Second Essay Assignment
Poetry: Close Reading
Essay Length: 4-6 pages, typed, double-spaced
First Draft Due (peer review): Monday, March 19, beginning of class
Final Draft Due: Wednesday, March 21, beginning of class.
Your first essay assignment asked you to analyze one particular element of a short story
to arrive at an interpretation of its larger meanings (themes). This essay assignment, a “close
reading,” asks you to explore the entirety of a poem, moving carefully through its sections to
discuss all of the keywords and elements that you think help illuminate the poem‟s theme(s).
This kind of interpretation is an exercise in noticing the significance of details, and observing
how choices in form, figurative language, rhythm, line breaks, image, speaker, etc. all contribute
to the shades of a poem‟s meaning. In lyric poetry, the meaning often relates to the complex
emotions felt by the speaker, so one way to approach this analysis is to ask yourself: what
different feelings is the speaker expressing in this poem, and how are these revealed or suggested
as you move carefully through its lines?
As with the first essay, a strong paper will develop a clear, focused, and original thesis,
stating your own interpretation of the text. Choosing and using effective quotations and
thoughtfully discussing them will be keys to strong support. (Remember that when quoting
poetry, you cite the line number, not page number, and must insert a / to show where the line
breaks appear). You will be discussing a wider variety of details than you did in your first essay:
discuss the poem line by line or section by section, working your way through the poem in
sequence. Though some paraphrase is often necessary to explain the literal meaning of the lines,
don‟t stop at paraphrase: show me how these lines relate to the themes (underlying ideas, feelings
and meanings) the poem is conveying. Don‟t feel, however, that you necessarily have to explain
every single detail of the poem--choose the ones you find most significant to focus on, and
develop your analysis around these. A strong essay will, as always, be organized in a logical way,
contain a fitting introduction and conclusion, and be clearly written and carefully proofread.
Choose ONE of the following poems for your close reading:
Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It”
Richard Wilbur, “The Writer”
Linda Hull, “Night Waitress”
Mary Oliver, “Singapore”
Lucille Clifton, “forgiving my father”
A successful essay must contain all of the following:
1) An introduction paragraph with a hook, background information, and clear and focused
thesis that makes an argument about the central themes (meaning) of the poem.
2) A minimum of 4 developed body paragraphs that support the thesis by making original
points about the text and supporting them with brief, carefully-chosen quotes and
examples. Especially with poetry, “cherry-picking” the precise words, phrases or lines
you need from the text to support your analysis, rather than relying on long, general
quotes, will be the key to a good close reading. So keep your quotes focused: only quote
that part of the text that helps you make your point.
3) Remember that quotes can‟t stand alone, and can‟t speak for themselves. You must
incorporate them gracefully into your own sentences, and analytically tie them to the
point of your paragraph and essay. Therefore, be sure to lead in to each quote, explaining
the context, what is happening, and who is speaking, to make the literal sense clear to
your reader. Then, analyze each quote, looking closely at the language you have chosen
and discussing what in it supports your point. It often helps to pull out short “bits” of a
longer quote you have used (a word or a phrase) that you think are particularly important,
and quote them again while you are analyzing them. See the student samples we
discussed in class for examples.
4) You will also need a fitting conclusion paragraph that sums up your main argument and
leaves the reader thinking.
5) Last, but of course not least, print your paper before it is due and proofread it carefully
before turning it in. Make sure it has a title (NOT “Essay #2” or the title of the poem you
are writing about), that it is LONG enough (not 3 ¾ pages…at least 4 full pages), and
that it is as free as possible of formatting, grammar and punctuation errors.
6) Remember our talk about plagiarism. If even a sentence or phrase is taken from another
source and not cited, you will fail this paper with 0 points and no possibility of a rewrite,
and therefore you will likely fail the class. Learn from the ideas of others all you want,
but if taking exact words you must quote, and you must develop your own original
analysis.