EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPH #2:
Research Experience
EIR: February 2012
Day 1
CW: Poetry Test
HW: Vocab Unit 13 & 14 p.51-58, 179-184 (front & back pages)
Day 2
CW: Review vocab; Intro Assignment; How to read a critical article
HW: Working with Critical Articles #1 and #2
Day 3
CW: Discussing possible topics, Working with Critical Sources #1
HW: Selecting a research paper topic #1: Finding a poet
Day 4
CW: Review HW; Intro “Key Words” for research; Research &
Citations; Note card format; Working with Critical Sources #2
HW: Brainstorming assignment #2 : Finding a poet
Day 5
CW: Using databases, Reviewing Internet sources
(bibliography cards); Easy Writer Section 42
HW: Bring one article and two note cards to class; Continue research;
Read plagiarism section Easy Writer 40d,
Day 6
CW: Review expository format/ topic sentences; Review note
Cards; Discuss plagiarism
HW: Complete research (one more article, two more note
cards)
Day 7
CW: Coming up with focuses
HW: Drafting work
Day 8
CW: Topic Sentence work; Choosing examples; Organization –
sample outline
HW: Complete outline; Drafting worksheet
Day 9
CW: Bring note cards; Incorporating Research into Outline;
Easy Writer Section 40: Integrating quotations
HW: Complete rough draft; Bring typed draft to class
Day 10
CW: Peer review; Works Cited Page format
HW: Content revisions; Complete Works Cited page
Day 11
CW: Style work; Final reminders—see teachers for help
HW: Style revisions
Day 12
CW: Final draft due; Intro Drama
Expository Paragraph with Research: Assignment and
Format
An expository paragraph will present your judgment about a subject and will explain/ support the
judgment with specific examples. For this second unit on expository writing, you will be using
database research for evidence. You will be required to include one database source in your
essay.
The topic:
For this paragraph, you will be analyzing the theme of a poem using a poem that was not read in
class. The poem will be a second poem from a poet that we have already studied. The focus of
this assignment is the research process. While you are limited in your choice of limited subject
and judgment, your sharp focus will discuss the different poetic devices that the poet used to
illustrate his or her theme.
The topic sentence:
Your topic sentence must have three parts:
1. limited subject = the specific part of your experience EX: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, by Dylan
Thomas
2. judgment
= your attitude toward subject
EX: expresses humankind’s persistence
3. sharp focus
=the reason for your judgment
EX: through the use of many poetical devices
With the information above, your topic sentence would become:
Dylan Thomas, in his poem Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, uses poetic devices to
express his admiration of human persistence even through the worst of conditions.
The support:
To support your judgment about the poem, you would need to offer three specific
poetic devices that the poet uses to express his or her theme. You would start off with
a generalization, a statement that identifies your example. Next, you would use your
evidence selected from the poem itself and collected from your research. Last, you
must conclude with analysis, a statement that shows how your poetic device helps to
prove your point. You repeat the pattern of generalization, evidence, analysis for
each of your three examples, connecting the examples with transitions.
Clincher:
The final sentence of the paragraph is your clincher. You need to use this last sentence
to reinforce your argument by repeating the key words from your topic sentence (your
limited subject, judgment and sharp focus). However, this sentence should not just be a
boring restatement of your topic sentence or worse yet, your topic sentence pasted on
to the end of your paper. Remind us of the key points, but in a new, exciting way.
Research:
For this assignment, you will use notecards to copy from database sources quotations
that you could possibly use as support for your topic. You will need to have a minimum
of four quotations from minimum of two database sources. However, you will only use
one of these researched notecards in your actual paper. The point of research is to
amass a range of material on your subject and then selecting the quotation that best
supports your topic.
The Research Process – Generating and Searching for Key Words
For the research component of the essay, you should search for articles about your poem and the
poet. The judgment & sharp focus you choose will determine what kind of outside information
you will need to find. For example, let’s look again at a topic sentence:
Dylan Thomas, in his poem Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, uses poetic devices to
express his admiration of human persistence even through the worst of conditions.
BillyBob would need to research information about not only the poem Do Not Go Gentle… but
he could also research into Thomas’s life to see if his overall works or his biography would help
to provide insight to his theme. He would want to research if anyone made comments about the
poetic devices in the poem as well as the general content of the poem. What key words might
BillyBob search for when he goes to the library databases?
Key Words:
IMPORTANT: You may NOT use encyclopedia articles (even if you find them in the
databases). Both of your sources MUST come from the databases. There are no exceptions.
Once you’ve brainstormed a list of key words, you will want to consult the appropriate databases
to help you find your information. While the library website offers a variety of choices, here are
some that you might find more helpful than others
Research for Writing on poetry
Databases Accessed through the Library Web Page:
Student Resource Center – good for articles about the author
Key terms you might search for:
SIRS Student Researcher – good for articles about poetry
Key terms you might search for:
Literature Research Center – good for articles about poetry and poets!
Key terms you might search for:
Research Steps
1. Skim through lists of articles to see what might be most useful
2. Be selective: you want full text articles, not just summaries
Consider where the article was published. Academic? Reliable?
Consider how the article fits with your ideas and the point you plan to discuss
3. Decide on two articles you think will be most useful and print out copies
4. Make sure that all of the citation information you need appears on your copy. If it does not,
copy any necessary info onto your printout (you’ll need your access date and the database
address)
5. Read the entire article; don’t just pick a key phrase out of context. You might want to
underline or highlight the article to pull out key ideas. Bring the articles to class.
6. Decide which quotes might be the most valuable to include in your essay and make note
cards. Pick two quotes from each article.
Working with Critical Articles #1
Read this excerpt from a criticism on Lorca’s “The Guitar”:
“Lorca described his own poetry in terms of the duende, the spirit of unpredictable passionate
outpouring that speaks from beyond us, or perhaps better from below us, from the earth. Lorca's
concept of duende is a theory of the energy generated by authentic risk. Duende asks that we
place ourselves at risk in the poem--that the poem be also our own duel. We must throw the full
weight of our own risk, our own fear of dying alone, of having lived for no purpose, into the
presence of the poem. The duende is the proximity of death.
The duende is physical. Like dance, poetry consists of entering into a rhythm, being willing to
lose oneself within that rhythm. Moving with the ideal body of the imagination across the dance
floor of the blank page, as a poet you try to enter into the great forms that shape us: passion,
death, regret, obsession, pain: hoping that you might speak for all as one might dance for all.”
Citation: Boyle, Peter. "Some notes on the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca." Southerly (1999): 198. Literature
Resource Center. Web. 10 Jan. 2012
Which poetic device does this citation support?
Underline a sentence or two from the excerpt that you would use to support this poetic device.
Working with Critical Articles #2
Read this excerpt from a criticism on Paz’s “Two Bodies”:
“Thus, the violence and heat from the knives turn the night (which the reader knows is a
metaphor for the world or universe) into sparks, into what results from the knives. This suggests
that the speaker is trying to show how the interactions of one person with another can affect the
world. In this stanza, it is not the bodies that are controlled by the night or that are subjects of
the night. They are, in fact, controlling the night. The metaphor here of the bodies being part of
something larger and subject to some larger force has been reversed, and the reader
understands that not only does the world affect the individual, but individuals also affect the
world through conflict with one another.”
Citation:
"Overview: 'Two Bodies'." Poetry for Students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 38. Detroit: Gale, 2011.Literature
Resource Center. Web. 10 Jan. 2012.
Which poetic device does this citation support?
Underline a sentence or two from the excerpt that you would use to support this poetic device.
Finding a Poetry Topic #1
Choose one of the poets that we studied in the poetry unit and do an internet search to find
other poems written by that author. Choose one poem that either most interests you, seems
easiest to find the theme, or utilizes obvious poetic devices. Use that poem to answer the
following questions:
AUTHOR ______________________________________
POEM TITLE __________________________________
Give an example of a poetic device used in the poem. What is the device? Provide a line or two
from the poem that shows the device in use.
What do you think the message or theme of the poem is? Explain why you think this is the
message.
Does the poetic device connect to the theme? Explain why or why not.
Finding a Poetry Topic #2
Choose a different poet from the first exercise that we also studied in the poetry unit and
do an internet search to find other poems written by that author. Choose one poem that
either most interests you, seems easiest to find the theme, or utilizes obvious poetic devices.
Use that poem to answer the following questions:
AUTHOR ______________________________________
POEM TITLE __________________________________
Give an example of a poetic device used in the poem. What is the device? Provide a line or two
from the poem that shows the device in use.
What do you think the message or theme of the poem is? Explain why you think this is the
message.
Does the poetic device connect to the theme? Explain why or why not.
Making Note Cards
Note cards should contain the following information:
--a subject heading
--one piece of information – one quote or one paraphrase
--an identification of the language as quote or paraphrase
--the author or title if no author is available
--your initials
Check the following example of note card format:
Speaker’s Conflict
________________________________________________________________________
“The speaker of "Do Not Go Gentle" is caught between his desire that his father
continue to live, and live vividly, and his recognition that death is "that good night,"
perhaps inherently "good" because it is the order of life / nature, perhaps more
immediately "good" as the agent for stopping pain, whether physical, mental, or
spiritual.”
Quote
BJM
Cyr online
JM
For a bibliography card, you need the MLA format source and a note where or how you found
the source.
Cyr, Marc D. "Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night': Through 'Lapis Lazuli' to King Lear."Papers on
Language & Literature 34.2 (Spring 1998): 207-217. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 52. Detroit:
Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Jan. 2012.
Lit. Resource Center [“Do Not Go Gentle Thomas”]
POETRY Working with Sources Worksheet #1
“Thomas's speaker in "Do not go gentle" is neither so firm in purpose nor so sure of the righteousness
of his position, and neither was Thomas: In the letter submitting the poem for publication, Thomas noted
in a postscript that "the only person I can't show the little enclosed poem to is, of course, my father, who
doesn't know he's dying" (Letters 359), which rather limited the efficacy of the appeal so far as D. J. was
concerned. Within the poem, the final stanza distills the conflict between the urging of a blazing defiance
of death's closing off of possibility, and the underlying recognition of the futility of that defiance, that it is
"too late" (11) to do anything about the failures and mistakes in life because there is no suggestion,
however much they burn, rave, and rage, that wise men shall ever fork lightning with their words, good
men see their deeds succeed, wild men find (and perhaps give) joy rather than grief, or grave men be
gay.
The speaker of "Do not go gentle" is caught between his desire that his father continue to live, and live
vividly, and his recognition that death is "that good night," perhaps inherently "good" because it is the
order of life / nature, perhaps more immediately "good" as the agent for stopping pain, whether physical,
mental, or spiritual. This conflict is present in the image of the "sad height," and cries out from the
speaker's contradictory request that his father "Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray" (17).”
Citation:
Cyr, Marc D. "Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night': Through 'Lapis Lazuli' to King Lear."Papers on
Language & Literature 34.2 (Spring 1998): 207-217. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 52. Detroit:
Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Jan. 2012.
Summarize the section of the article above:
Select a quote from the article above that clearly supports your summary:
POETRY Working with Sources Worksheet #2
“Mirror” by Sylvia Plath
“The "She" who seeks in the reflecting lake a flattering distortion of herself is an image of one aspect of
the mirror into which she gazes. She is the woman as male-defined ideal or as the ideal manqué, the
woman who desires to remain forever the "young girl" and who "turns to those liars, the candles or the
moon" for confirmation of the man-pleasing myth of perpetual youth, docility, and sexual allure. As such,
she is the personification--or reflection--of the mirror as passive servant, the preconditionless object
whose perception is a form of helpless swallowing or absorption. The image that finally appears in
the mirror, the old woman as "terrible fish," is the opposite or "dark" side of the mirror. She is the
mirror who takes a kind of fierce pleasure in her uncompromising veracity and who, by rejecting the role
of passive reflector for a more creative autonomy, becomes, in that same male-inscribed view, a
devouring monster. The woman/mirror, then, seeks her reflection in the mirror/woman, and the result is a
human replication of the linguistic phenomenon the poem becomes. Violating its implicit claim, the poem
becomes a mirror not of the world, but of other mirrors and of the process of mirroring. When living
mirrors gaze into mirrors, as when language stares only at itself, only mirrors and mirroring will be visible.
This parallel between person and poem suggests that the glass (and lake) in "Mirror" is woman--and more
particularly the woman writer or artist for whom the question of mimetic reflection or creative
transformation is definitive. For the woman--and especially for the mother--per se, the crucial choice is
between the affirmation and effacement of the self: will she reflect the child or more generalized "other" as
it presents itself for obliging reflection, or will she insist on her own autonomous identity and perception.
To do the latter is to risk looking into the mirror and seeing, not the pleasing young girl, but the terrible
fish.”
Citation:
Freedman, William. "The Monster in Plath's 'Mirror,'." Papers on Language and Literature 108.5 (Oct. 1993): 152-169.
Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter and Deborah A. Schmitt. Vol. 111. Detroit: Gale Group,
1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Jan. 2012.
Summarize the section of the article above:
Select a quote from the article above that clearly supports your summary:
Enough for Me by Fadwa Tuqan
Enough for me to die on her earth
be buried in her
to melt and vanish into her soil
then sprout forth as a flower
played with by a child from my country.
Enough for me to remain
in my country’s embrace
to be in her close as a handful of dust
a sprig of grass
a flower.
Abbas
Beydoun, Abbas. “Fadwa Tuqan: An Arab Electra”. Trans. Elie Chalia. Vol 9, no. 45. Al
Jadid. 2003. Web. 17 July 2011.
BJM
Literature Resource Center [Tuqan Enough]
Fadwa’s Voice Violence
“Fadwa's voice was not a fighting one but bereaved, deprived, gentle, and insistent and
visceral at times; it was a voice searching for love only to find fate, searching for a song and
a flower to find instead the grave and the tank. Fadwa wrote about that orphaned rose, that
orphaned love which she encountered in a world filled with mourning and violence.”
BJM
Quote
Abbas online
McGoogle 1
BillyBob McGoogle
Miss Splendifertastic
Freshman Literature 030-07
18 February 2012
Hope for You and Me
Fadwa Tuqan uses poetic devices in her poem Enough for Me to develop a message of
hope and renewal. Tuqan most clearly uses tone to establish the despair in the beginning of the
poem. The first line suggests an impending death. Tuqan uses words like “death” (1), “buried”
(2) and then suggests in line three that she will “melt and vanish into her soil”. These words at
the beginning of the poem establish a tone of a giving in to death. “Fadwa’s voice was not a
fighting one but bereaved, deprived, gentle…” (Beydoun). By establishing a tone of giving up,
of sadness, in the beginning of the poem, Tuqan sets up a rebirth by the end of the poem. With
the second major use of poetic device, personification, Tuqan begins to shift the tone of the
poem. Tuqan gives the earth human characteristics in lines six through eight. “Enough for me to
remain / in my coutry’s embrace / to be in her close.” By having the Earth act as a motherly
source of comfort, the tone of the poem shifts from the sadness in the beginning to a tone of
solace. The Earth is personified as a comforter of the narrator in her time of need. Finally,
Tuqan uses symbolism to finalize the theme of rebirth. Tuqan uses a flower as a symbol of hope.
Now that the personae has been buried, she can now be reborn as “a sprig of grass / a flower” (910). The narrator hopes that the flower will be “played with by a child from my country” (5).
The narrator has the hope that after her death and burial, she will be reborn. Hopefully her death,
most likely her legacy through her poetry, will provide hope for future children. By using the
symbol of the flower, Tuqan has taken the sorrow of her death and turned it into a sign of hope.
Fadwa Tuqan suggests in her poem Enough for Me that death, so prevalent in her country, will
not defeat the positive future for her country.
(New Page)
McGoogle 3
Works Cited
Beydoun, Abbas. “Fadwa Tuqan: An Arab Electra”. Trans. Elie Chalia. Vol 9, no. 45.
Al Jadid. 2003. Web. 17 July 2011.
Tuquan, Fadwa. “Enough for Me”. 1967. The Kahlil Sakakini Cultural Centre. Web.
10 July 2011.
.
Outline the body of the paragraph
Topic sentence:
Ex 1:
Generalization:
Details:
Analysis:
Ex 2
Generalization:
Details:
Analysis:
Ex 3
Generalization:
Details:
Analysis:
Clincher:
INCORPORATING CITATIONS INTO AN OUTLINE - DRAFT
Here is a completed outline for a possible paper on Don Not Go Gentle, by Dylan Thomas.
At the bottom, two notecards from this student’s research are provided. Which notecard
could be effectively used to support the paper? Which focus would the notecard fit under?
Draft the focus (generalization through analysis) that would incorporate the notecard
chosen.
Thesis:
Dylan Thomas uses poetic devices in his poem Do Not Go Gentle to illustrate his theme on the
complexities of life and death.
FIRST FOCUS
Generalization : Rhythm
Details: Rhythm is …
Rhythm in line ___ is off the pattern
Analysis: The rhythm is consistent, throughout, like life is consistent. But, some lines show the “hiccups” that can
happen in any normal life. The reader hears the repetitive nature of life that can only be stopped by the end of the
poem, or by the death of his father
SECOND FOCUS
Generalization:
Repetition
Details: The repetition of the poem of the main two line
Repeated at the end of the poem to break the structure
Repetition of the word “rage” begs for his father to fight and stay alive.
Analysis:. The poet repeats the command lines for his father throughout the poem, mimicking the
constant begging of a sick loved one to get well. Or, the repetition could be a symbolic prayer asking God not to
take his father away. When a loved one is sick, sometimes all the care-taker can do is pray.
THIRD FOCUS
Generalization : Metaphors
Details: The good men, the wise men, the grave men, the wild men cover all aspects of humankind
showing the universality of death.
Analysis: The different types of attitudes towards life give his father an argument for staying alive. Everyone, in
one way or another, is trying to stay alive, living life to the fullest.
Life and Death Theme
“The speaker of "Do not go gentle" is caught between his desire that his father
continue to live, and live vividly, and his recognition that death is "that good night,"
perhaps inherently "good" because it is the order of life / nature, perhaps more
immediately "good" as the agent for stopping pain, whether physical, mental, or
spiritual.”
Quotation
IS
Cyr online
Rage image against death
“…the poem does not preach calm, as might be expected, but rage,
rage against death, that event often equated with Nature as an ultimate
physical force.“
Quotation
IS
Hochman online
Practice with Drafting Analysis
1. Read the following topic sentence. Label the parts.
Plath uses poetic devices in her poem “The Mirror” to warn women against the
dangers of self-criticism.
2. Read the details provided for this student’s first example. Create a generalization
to introduce the example, and then organize the details/evidence into sentence form.
Finally, use the details along with the information offered in the topic sentence to
create at least two sentences of analysis.
Evidence
Quote from Freedman “To do the latter is to risk looking into the mirror and seeing, not
the pleasing young girl, but the terrible fish.”
Quote from poem “Now I am a lake.”
Imagery including candles, darkness, stars
Write out a generalization sentence.
Write out evidence sentences with proper MLA formatting and lead-in.
Write out analysis sentences.
Works Cited Page Help
Basic Entry: A Poem by a Single Author
Author’s name. “Title of Poem”. Year of Publication. Publication
Information. Web. Date of download.
Sample:
Plath, Sylvia. “The Mirror”. 1965. The Sylvia Plath Forum. Web. 16
January 2011.
Entry: A Work from a Library Subscription Service (database)
* Author’s Name, Include name of database (underlined), name of the
service, name of the library or library system (city, state abbrv.), and
date of access
Sample:
Smith, John. “Cooling Trend in Antarctica.” Futurist May-June: 15.
Academic SearchPremier. Web. 22 May 2002.
Notes:
Follow information on page 266 of Easy Writer text
Do not enhance the “Works Cited” title.
Works cited page is an official page of your paper, so it needs a page
heading
Alphabetize your list by the first word of the entry!