Eng.IV.H./Br. Byrd/Renaissance Poetry Unit --Aemilia Layner Critical Thinking
Activity
Directions: After having carefully read, annotated, and considered Layner’s poem “Eve’s
Apology in Defense of Women”, thoroughly employ your brain and pen in the answering of
the questions that follow.
Level One: The Facts
Identify the author, her time period, and the context of this piece (if possible)
Level Two: Understand: Using bullet points, explain this text:
What’s the situation here? What is this text?
Level Three: Apply (How does it affect you?)
Do you still think that stories like the Garden of Eden story are used against women? Or,
more generally, in what ways are women discriminated against? In what ways do we still
argue that the two genders are unequal?
Level Four: Analyze:
Pick apart this text piece by piece
Pt. One: The speaker
Pt. Two: The purpose
Pt. Three: The argument (you may have subpoints here)
Pt. Four: The argument’s aim (what does it prove?)
Then show how the pieces relate. This is the interesting part of analysis. It’s theoretical and
subjective. It’s the “so what?” It’s the part where you help others understand the text.
Level Five: Evaluate: (Agree or Disagree?)
How could Layner’s argument be improved? Why do you think that she chooses to focus on
Eve and Pilate’s wife and not talk from her own experience? What would you recommend
to someone writing an “apology” for women today?
Level Six: Create:
Write an apology speech of some kind, in either prose or verse. Establish the situation,
build the argument, make a demand based on the argument. You, like Layner, should use at
least one allusion.