Essay 2
English 102
Length: 6
Choose two of the poems you have read for class in the past few weeks (listed below) and write an essay in which you explore the relationship between the poem’s theme and its literary elements. Choose at least three elements of the poem to analyze, such as its form, rhyme scheme, symbol, personification, irony, imagery, etc. and explain how these elements help you determine a theme in the poem. In your conclusion, don’t just reiterate your points, but also tell how they all come together to push forward the meaning of the poem.
“My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke
“Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Ode on Grecian Urn,” by John Keats
“Mending Wall” Robert Frost
“Do Not Go Gentle into the Goodnight” Dylan Thomas
“Para Teresa” Ines Avila Hernandez
Criteria:
- In the introduction of your essay, BRIEFLY summarize the poems you plan to discuss.
- Your thesis statement must be the last sentence of your introduction paragraph and must reveal your overall position about the theme and elements of the poem.
- You must cite (with context) and explicate lines from the poem in each body paragraph. Break down the lines so that your reader understands their meaning completely and connect them to the theme of the poem.
- Be sure to leave time to revise for grammar and content.
- You must follow MLA format in your in-text citations (just the line numbers), but you do not need to have a works cited page.
