Writing Assignment #3
English 102:304
Professor Kratz
Rough Draft: Due Wednesday, March 25th. Must be at least 750 words long.
Final Draft: Due Tuesday, April 8th. Must be at least 1000 words long.
Langston Hughes uses poetry to find a place for African Americans in America.
Sometimes he fails. Other times, he succeeds—even if the “place” he finds is only
marginal or revolutionary. For your second paper, explore Hughes’ relationship with
America. Does he feel that there is room for real racial diversity? Is the sadness in his
poetry an indication that he has given up on realizing this “dream”? And, why does
Hughes choose poetry as the medium for exploring this issue?
1. You need to MAKE AN ARGUMENT (in other words, you need to analyze
the poem, and use that analysis in an organized way to prove a single point).
2. In doing so, you must use at least TWO CRITICAL SOURCES (and no more
than three). One may come from our text (i.e. Rampersad, Jemie, Barksdale,
or Emanuel), but YOU MUST USE AT LEAST ONE SCHOLARLY
SOURCES FOUND ON YOUR OWN.
3. You also must DISCUSS ISSUES OF FIGURATION, VOICE, POINT-OFVIEW, AND/OR FORM (you don’t need to address all of what we’ve
covered so far, but do address some of it).
4. You must finally include a BIBLIOGRAPHY with full citations for all of
your sources.
STEP 1: INTERPRETATION
Review the “Interpretation” worksheet. Read the assigned Hughes poems, and choose a
few (only two or three at most that seem especially relevant to the assignment) to work
with. Analyze them PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION TO DETAILS.
Think about the elements we’ve covered in class:
 Literal Language—including historically appropriate definitions from the OED
(review the “Denotations & Connotations” and “OED Exercise” worksheets)
 Point of View—including whether the narrator is a participant or non-participant,
reliable or unreliable… (review the “Voice” worksheet)
 Figurative Language—including images, similes, metaphors, symbols, & allegory
 Form—including syntax & line (end-stoped vs. enjambed lines), rhyme & rhyme
scheme, alliteration, assonance, meter, and closed/open form (review the “Rhyme
Scheme & Meter” worksheet)


Context—including historical period (e.g. early 20th Century), artistic movement
(e.g. Harlem Renaissance), literary genre (e.g. expressly musical/lyrical poetry),
etc.
**NEW Diction & Dialect—Diction refers to an author’s word choice or
vocabulary. Think about why an author chose to use concrete words or abstract
words, common/easy words or unusual/difficult words, etc. One aspect of diction
is Dialect, an author’s choice to use a particular variety of language spoken by an
identifiable regional group or social class of people. Hughes often chooses to use
dialect (non-standard English) in his writing (e.g. “The sink is broke, / The water
don’t run” (“Madam and the Rent Man,” 11-12). Why? What does it suggest
about his speakers? What kind of audience is he writing for?
Ask good questions:
1. What words, phrases, lines, and details may have confused or baffled you? Why?
2. What observations can you make about the poem’s details?
3. What words and phrases recur? How? Where? Why?
4. What connections can you establish among the details of action & language?
5. What inferences can you draw from these connections?
Some Prefab Questions about “Dream Deferred”:
1. What’s the “plot” of the poem? What happens? Make sure you know the
meanings of all words used. When was it written? Are there any important words
the meanings of which may have changed over time? If so, look them up in the
OED.
2. What “dream” do you think Hughes is referring to? What does it mean to “defer”
a dream? Is the “dream” a symbol (in making this determination, refer to the
questions on p. 536)? If so, of what?
3. Who’s the speaker/narrator? Is it Hughes or a character (what support do you
have for your answer)? What implications does this narrative perspective have for
the poem?
4. The poem is made up of a series of metaphors: the deferred dream is compared to
a “raisin in the sun,” a “sore,” “rotten meant,” etc. What’s the metaphorical
significance of these comparisons (i.e. what might it mean to say a dream is like
“a raisin” or a “sore”)? Are raisins vital/full of life, or shriveled? Are sores easy to
forget, or do they insist on our attention?
5. What kind of images does Hughes use? Concrete or abstract? Involving growth or
decay? Why do you think he does this?
6. Hughes uses an interesting set of verbs: “dry,” “fester,” “stink,” “crust,” “sag,”
and “explode.” Are they all similar? If not, what’s important about the difference?
7. Is there a regular meter or rhyme scheme? Is the poem in closed or open form?
What does this contribute to the content of the poem? Remember that open form
is more “natural” (a la Whitman’s “When I heard the learn’d astronomer” (566)),
and that it is less “balanced” or “song-like”…
8. Is there a lot of rhyme, assonance, and alliteration? Does the poem sound
good/mellifluous or bad/cacophonous? How does the “sound match the sense”
(remembering Pope’s recommendation in “Sound and Sense”)?
9. The poem is a series of questions. Why do you think Hughes wrote the poem this
way? Why not just TELL the reader that a dream deferred is like a raisin in the
sun…etc.?
10. Are most of the lines end-stopped or enjambed? Why does Hughes end and begin
the lines as he does? Do the lines work with the grammar of Hughes’ writing, or
do they confuse the meaning of what he’s saying? Do the lines endings slow your
reading down, or emphasize words that would otherwise be lost in the middle of a
clause? Why?
11. Is there anything interesting in Hughes’ diction/word choice? Are the words he
uses difficult to understand, or straightforward? Are they abstract or concrete?
Why do you think Hughes chooses these kinds of words for this poem?
12. How does it contribute to your understanding to think of this poem in the context
of Hughes’ other poetry? Are there themes that Hughes returns to? Are there
images or symbols in this poem that get developed across other poems (e.g.
“Dream Deferred,” “Dream Variations,” and “Dream Boogie”)? What might these
connections within the body of Hughes’ work tell us about this poem? About
Hughes’ thinking?
13. How does it contribute to your understanding to think of this poem in the context
of the Harlem Renaissance? Of the early Civil Rights Movement? Of
class/economics?
STEP II. RESEARCH
In addition to the poems you choose (your primary sources), you are required to use two
(and no more than three) critical/secondary sources. One may come from our text (i.e.
Rampersad, Jemie, Barksdale, or Emanuel), but you must use at least one source found
through your own research, and it must be SCHOLARLY.
A scholarly source is one that has been peer reviewed—that is, reviewed by experts in the
relevant field. If an essay comes from an electronic database of scholarly sources, or from
a journal/book published by a university press (e.g. University of Pennsylvania Press),
it’s scholarly.
Using a scholarly source guarantees that the source is reliable. Without this guarantee,
you’d have to establish the following on your own:
1. That the source is accurate (it can be verified elsewhere)
2. That the author is an authority (he/she has relevant expertise on the topic)
3. That the source is current (it was published/copyrighted in the last five years)
4. That the source is unbiased (it has no agenda, and is objective)
You’ll probably want to do your research through one of the library’s databases. The
following link will take you to a list of them: http://www.bcc.edu/library/databases. The
four relevant databases are Academic Search Premier (a good general-purpose database
with full-text articles), JSTOR (a digital library of academic journals), Literary Reference
Center (provides information on authors and their works including biographies, articles,
reviews and interviews), & Literature Resource Center (providing scholarly journals and
selected full-text articles).
First, choose your search terms (key words identifying the author, specific work(s), or
subjects within those works that are most important to your project). For instance, you’ll
probably want to start with “Langston Hughes,” “Dream Deferred—or the title of your
poem, whatever it is,” and “America.” Make sure to set the parameters of the search to
limit results to only Full Text sources, in English, and published in the last five-ten years.
You want a list of results about ten or fifteen entries long. If it’s any longer, you need to
further focus your search. If it’s any shorter, you might want to make your search terms
less focused/specific.
Now review your results. Look through the abstracts at the beginning, at the first few
paragraphs, and at the end of the article to assess whether this article is really going to be
useful to you. Work through your results in this way until your find the one or two you
want. And only then should you read it in full.
STEP III. FINDING & ANANLYZING QUOTES
The method for finding and analyzing quotes differs somewhat from primary
sources/poems to secondary sources/critical essays.
For your primary sources/poems, I refer you to Step 1 above. After having analyzed your
poems in the ways suggested in Step 1, find those passages that are most relevant to your
project. (Also, it would be useful at this point to have a rough sense of what you think is
going on in the poem with respect to your assigned topic.)
For your secondary sources, choose quotes relevant to your project. Make sure that they
are “idea” quotes—that they deal with the author’s ideas, and so will be an appropriate and
productive target for your critical thinking. Be careful to distinguish between “idea” and
“summary quotes”—quotes that just summarize facts or events. These are (usually) dead
ends for critical thinking. Also, be careful to use only those quotes that reflect your author’s
own ideas: authors often include the ideas of other writers in their own work, but don’t
necessarily agree; to use such a passage in your paper and say that it represents the
thinking of your author would be wrong…
To analyze your secondary sources, be critical. Rather than just summarizing what the
author says, evaluate what he says and how he says it. Does his logic hold up? If not, is his
position still persuasive? Does he make any assumptions? If so, does his argument fall apart
without those assumptions in place? Do the kinds of terms he uses, or comparisons he
makes tell you anything about his perspective? Is it a perspective with which you are
comfortable? Why, or why not?
**A Note on Parenthetical Citation Form:
For every quote, both from poem and critical essay, you must include a parenthetical
citation. However, the form of these citations differs. For instructions on appropriately
quoting and citing poetry, see the “Poetry Citation Guide” on the class website. To
parenthetically cite your critical essays, use MLA form: (last name of author, page
number).
STEP IV. BODY PARAGRAPHS
Follow the directions in the “Writing Assignment 3, Paragraphing” worksheet on the
class webpage in the Writing section.
STEP V. THESIS FORMATION
Only after you’ve written a couple of rough body paragraphs should you commit to a
thesis. Your argument should follow from your analysis and research, not the other way
around. To refresh your memory on what it is a thesis statement must do, see the “Thesis
Formation” worksheet on the class webpage.
STEP VI. ORGANIZATION
Once you have a thesis and a few body paragraphs, you should attend to the organization
of your argument. Your paper needs to work like a clock: lots of parts each contributing
to the work of the whole. Your paper needs to prove a thesis. That thesis needs to be
supported by one major claim (topic) made in each paragraph. Each paragraph’s
claim/topic needs to be proven with analysis. Each piece of analysis has to follow clearly
and logically from a quote. A good way to ensure that this is the case is to do a “Reverse
Outline.” For instructions on how to do this, see the “Reverse Outline” worksheet on the
class webpage.
STEP VII. INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION
The introduction and conclusion of any paper should be the LAST thing you write;
neither has to include quotes or analysis.
Introductions
Do:
1) Engage readers with your topic.
2) Contextualize & introduce the paper’s major issue(s) and sources.
3) Focus readers’ attention on the particular aspects of the topic that matter to you.
4) Deliver the thesis (traditionally).
Don’t:
1) Be overly broad or vague (eg. “Throughout history, people have been racially
biased…”). Rather focus your reader’s attention; state as specifically as you can
what matters to you in the paper that follows.
2) Start with a dictionary definition. Rather, be confident enough about your
argument to put it in your own words.
Conclusions
Do
1) Concisely review the logic of your position, and sum up the argument of your
paper.
2) Recommend action based on your research and analysis.
3) Suggest further questions for research.
Don’t
1) Engage in any new analysis.
STEP VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY
In addition to the parenthetical citations in the body of your paper, you must include a
bibliography listing the full citations for each of your sources. We use MLA format. The
following website has instructions on correctly formatting full citations for each kind of
source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/675/1/ . You can also use EasyBib on
the library’s website, but make sure that when you include the citation on your document,
that it has a hanging indent.
STEP IX. REVISE, REVISE, REVISE
Complete the paper in enough time to be able to put the paper aside and read it with fresh
eyes. Does it fulfill all the requirements above? Find a friend or classmate to complete a
reverse outline and see if he/she understands the logic of your paper. If there are places
where his/her understanding goes astray, you know where you need to spend more time
explaining yourself or revising your strategy.
Make sure that your citations are in correct shape, and that there are no grammar or
spelling errors.