Essay One: Textual Analysis of a Poetic Treatise

ASSIGNMENT Closely read a poetic treatise in order to analyze its rhetorical situation and message.

AUDIENCE Fellow students who are exploring the conventions of academic writing.

SOURCES William Carlos Williams’ “Introduction to The Wedge” Poetry Foundation Link on D2L.

LENGTH 4-5 pages (1000-1250 words), typed, double-spaced, 1” margins, 12 pt. Times New Roman.

DOCUMENTATION MLA Style (Rules for Writers pp. 437-525)

DUE DATES Outline due 9/13, Rough Draft due 9/15, Revised Draft due 9/20, Final Essay 1 Due via D2L by 5pm Thursday, 9/22

INTRODUCTION
In this essay you will closely read and interpret a poetic treatise that functions as the introduction to a book of poems and describe for your readers, in detail, the rhetorical situation of this text. Your goal is to clearly explain to your readers how the treatise works to convey meaning. To this end, your thesis should be specific and offer a textual analysis of the treatise: What is the author’s purpose? To whom is he writing? Why? Keep in mind that your assignment is to describe exactly how the treatise works as a preface to a book of poetry. Because you are writing for other students of writing, your readers will need detailed examples and thorough explanations of the points you are making. These examples will come from direct textual support in the form of direct quotations, descriptive paraphrases, and brief critical summary (see Ch. 5 in A Student’s Guide to First-Year Writing).

WRITING THE ANALYSIS
When you analyze a text, you break the text down into its major parts. To make your own interpretation convincing, offer substantial direct evidence from the text and carefully lead readers through your lines of thought step by step. Chapter’s 2 & 6 in A Student’s Guide to First-Year Writing will be valuable resources as you complete this assignment. The most persuasive reason to study literature is to help us understand the world outside of ourselves and connect to it in a meaningful way. To develop your thesis, consider your initial reaction to the text. Perhaps you felt the author was trying to communicate an important idea about society. Perhaps the text offers a new way to think about the aesthetics of poetry—examine what you’ve learned through the comparison. This might make for a compelling conclusion to your essay.

Organizational Structure

Introduction
In your introduction, you should
• Hook your readers with an explanation of your response to the text and how that response provides insight into the rhetorical situation of the text.
• Briefly describe and summarize the text. Use less than a paragraph for this summary and focus only on the details that are salient to your analysis. Keep in mind that we’ve all read this text. You don’t need to provide an exhaustive summary. Some brief biographical information about the poet might also be important.
• End your introduction with your argument that establishes how the treatise works to convey a message. This should be a snapshot of your entire argument that clearly establishes your claims about the text. This argument snapshot is your thesis statement.
• Forecast your essay by briefly stating how you’ll prove your points (this is a sophisticated way to transition from your introduction to the body of your paper). For example: Through “The Cask of Amontillado,” Edgar Allan Poe argues that even a simple act of friendship can become dangerous if coupled with thirst for revenge. We see this through Montresor’s feelings of superiority and his refusal to compromise (in this example, the second sentence is the forecast).

Body
This is where you will argue each of your individual thesis claims using PIIE(t) to construct your body paragraphs. Remember, each thesis claim must become the topic sentence of a body paragraph. The rest of the paragraph then supports that claim with direct textual evidence followed by your own analysis that carefully explains exactly how that evidence supports the claim. You will have at least one PIE body paragraph per thesis claim. Think of yourself as a literary detective; offer proof for your claims by making and analyzing inferences from the text. Continue your introductory forecasting by arguing each thesis claim in the order that you stated it in your introduction. In your body paragraphs, you should
• Clearly identify your observations and inferences (thesis claims) and thoroughly explain what you read that lead you to make that observation or inference.
• Remember, direct textual support for your claim is the evidence for your textual analysis.
• Provide your readers with a detailed explanation of exactly how your evidence supports each of your claims.

Conclusion
In your conclusion, you need to
• Restate your thesis in a new way (“In this analysis I considered…”). BE BRIEF. Remember you just supported your thesis claims in the body of your paper. Your reader doesn’t need you to rehash of all of your points; just a reminder will suffice.
• Reflect a bit on what you have found. Your conclusion should explain to your readers why your argument is valid and worthy of attention. What insight does your analysis of this text provide for your readers? Why should your readers care about this? Remember that the purpose of your analysis, like all literary analysis, is to help your reader notice and understand something about the text that she may not have noticed on first reading. What does your analysis offer other readers of the text? Why should your readers care about your textual analysis?

Style and Formatting Guidelines
• The thesis should be a statement that applies to something specific in the text. You might think of the thesis as being an observation combined with an inference about what that observation means. In constructing your thesis, try to propose something other readers missed either because they glossed over details or because your personal experiences have given you a unique perspective. Avoid boring generalizations (“war is bad” or “communication is important”). If you get stuck, try adding an “if” or “because” to your original statement.
• Always write about writing in the present tense: Shakespeare suggests that…. When Hamlet decides to . . . ., etc.
• Put quotations marks around the titles of poems. (Use italics for plays or other long texts such as films.)
• When using direct quotes from poems, include the line number: “…” (line 6).
• Don’t write “I think” or “I know” or information such as “When I read the story….” Such phrases are not necessary and make your essay less persuasive.
• Make full use of opportunities to workshop your draft in class by bringing new and improved versions to each peer review session. Keep track of your classmates’ most important comments; you’ll submit this information with your final essay.
• Increase your own critical skills by helping your classmates with their drafts.
• To avoid losing credit, compose your essay in STANDARD WRITTEN ENGLISH. If you’re concerned about your editing skills, stop by Think Tank before the essay is due, and review your essay with a tutor. Take the time to edit carefully, giving special attention to the items we reviewed in class.

EVALUATION
An excellent project will meet the following criteria, showing that you can:

• Effectively use the source text to support and develop your own argument
• Use a successful combination of brief quotes, long quotes, and paraphrase
• Integrate citations ethically, clearly, and effectively
• Make a sincere effort to employ the MLA scholarly conventions for citing sources, including parenthetical citations and works cited
• Organize development clearly
• Revise deeply as well as edit carefully

When I evaluate your textual analysis, I will review how well you have met the goals of the assignment. That is, I will look for a clearly stated, thesis driven, logical analysis of the source text. If your essay runs a bit long, that’s fine. However, if your essay is way too short, it simply won’t explain or analyze deeply enough to be effective, so it won’t earn a passing grade. Your essay will also need to meet the general criteria of good academic writing: a clear focus, logical and purposeful organization, strong use of supporting evidence, and thoughtful development of the ideas you are presenting. You will not lose points for incorrect citation, however, you will lose points for missing citations.