This week we will learn about additional ways in which we can analyze a text. A work can be considered for its portrayal of gender, class, culture. Check out the link: “Read about Critical Approaches in Literature.” It gives us another way to see the story. By considering how gender is portrayed, for example, we are using a specific lens (feminist) with which to view the text. Try using this lens when reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” or “The Story of an Hour.”There will be a short quiz on “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Then you will write in your journal and apply a lens.Find a relaxing place to read this week's stories. "The Story of an Hour" is very short but excellent. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is longer but this is most student's favorite story. Remember to annotate and practice close reading. Enjoy reading some great literature!

This week you write Essay 2. It will be a Compare/Contrast essay, a common assignment, but sometimes a tricky form.  In order to help you better understand how comparing and contrasting two things can help you use one as a lens to better see the other, you will first view a Powerpoint about comparing and contrasting two sculptures about love. Be sure to practice writing c/c thesis statements as outlined in the PPT.Then check out the list of prompts for the various texts we've read that share a similar theme.  Your mini-essay can be about marriage, or coming of age, for example. I will leave it up to you; but you will compare two texts and make a claim. Then illustrate how that claim is true by quoting from the texts. For this essay, you will freewrite until you can make a claim and come up with reasons why you believe your claim is true. Then hunt for quotes to support your claim. Now you will have an outline. With an outline you can focus on the essential elements of an essay: thesis, support, evidence. Once you have these, you have the structure of your essay and will be better able to move forward advancing an argument and not lapsing into plot summary.There is a classic essay on the writing process called "The Maker's Eye" by Donald Murray. You can read this before or after you create a draft of Essay 2, but definitely before you begin revising as Murray has many good suggestions that you can apply when revising this essay.Make sure you view the Powerpoint for how to write a compare contrast thesis. Do not write a thesis that says "there are many similarities and some differences between ____ and _____."" Look closely at slide #'s 6,7 and 8 for drafting your thesis.Use the self-edit worksheet for final revisions.

This week we will read about poetry and read & discuss some great poems. Now for those of you who may be groaning and saying you don't like poetry and that it's too difficult, I’d like to say this:  Poetry deals with intense emotions and deep ideas. A poet tries to make the reader feel something, so they do not TELL us explicitly what their point is. They SHOW us through imagery: sights, sounds, smells, touch so that we can SEE/FEEL what they mean. If you want someone to say something directly, read the newspaper ;)Poetry is song. It requires us to use our imagination. Try to appreciate the imaginative leaps poets make when they use metaphors and similes to compare one thing to another so that we can see what they are showing us. Tune into the music of the lines. Appreciate their brevity. It's pretty amazing how much a poet can say in such a small space. Then after reading some great poems, you will journal about them. Next, check out the links on the Research Paper. The Guidelines give you detailed information on this assignment.  In a nutshell though, you will pick ONE poem from the list in the guidelines to write about. You can check out the links provided to learn about your poet and the time period in which they were writing. There's a link to Poetry Foundation and Poets.org. Just type in the name of your poet. You will NOT be writing a biography, but sometimes you can see more in the poem if you have the context of the poem. Make some notes as you go. Next week you will begin writing about your research paper poem.

SPRING BREAKYou can continue researching your poem and poet. This week there is also an extra credit option.**EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENTRead "Love & Other Catastrophes" and then look at your own playlist. Can you tell a story using the titles of the songs from your playlist? This is a fun assignment and is optional. Post poem for extra credit.

This week you will continue reading about the poet you chose last week for the Research Paper assignment. Then you will read the guidelines and check out the sample for writing a BIO poem about your chosen poet. There's a template you'll follow to help you craft this poem. It’s a fun way to learn about these amazing writers.Next, we will do a pretty cool exercise, called “Writing in the Zones” from Bard College. There are detailed guidelines and a link to show you how to set up your paper (photo) so that you can complete this exercise. The other link gives you the step by step guide for how to fill in the zones.Once you’ve completed this exercise, use what you wrote in each zone to write Essay 3. Use the Self-edit worksheet to help you with revisions. If you haven't already done so, now is a good time to go back over Essays 1 & 2 in order to view my feedback. See what you are doing right and review areas you need to strengthen.

As we continue with poetry, we will look closely at one poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden, and two articles of literary criticism. This week’s unit will give you practice analyzing a poem as well as literary criticism about a poem.Literary criticism does not mean other writers are criticizing Auden’s work. Instead, scholars are critically analyzing his poem. Just like the papers you have been writing all semester, there are scholars who read and analyze literature, who write critical analysis essays about that literature. These writers read each other’s analyses and sometimes agree and sometimes argue about the meaning of a work. In this way, writers are in conversation with one another about the work. By writing this multi-source (research) paper, you will be joining that conversation.For your journal you’ll write brief summaries of Auden’s poem and each essay of literary criticism.Next, you will access the library database so that you can find literary criticism on the poem you chose for your research paper. You will type in the title of your poem into the databases in the link provided: “Access Library databases.” The databases you need are all conveniently located in this link. Scroll down to where it says “Start Here to find Literary Criticism” and use the database links provided:  Literary Resource Center, Literature Reference Center, Bloom Literature.*There is also a research tutorial toward the end of this week's unit with a couple of short videos which discuss literary research and how to access the database.It is important to acknowledge that research takes time. There's a lot of surfing around and reading and weeding through until you find sources that will pertain to your argument. Patience and time management will be needed to write a research paper. The idea of writing a longer, multi-sourced paper should not overwhelm you if you remember Bird by Bird. One step at a time. Remember to print off articles you know you'll use. Read with a pen in hand. Annotate. Let's use the steps we have been practicing. Use the page as a place to think. Freewrite. Don't worry about writing paragraphs initially. Just get some ideas down.A note about Literary Criticism: Sometimes literary criticism is challenging reading. One of these articles is easier to understand than the other. Print off both articles. They are short. Use a pen to underline important ideas and write in the margin what you do understand. Keep moving forward, reading the article, even if you don't understand all it is saying. You will get to parts that you do understand. Underline and write key concepts in the margins. If you go back and reread again, you will understand more than you did the first time. It is okay if you still don't understand everything, but just like with the writing in the zones exercise, you can focus in on the key ideas you do understand :)There is a link called “How to Use Literary Criticism in your Research Paper.” It lays out (in step by step fashion) how to incorporate the ideas of others alongside what you are saying about the poem. As you begin writing your research paper, you can use ideas from your Writing in the Zones exercise or Essay 3, though you will probably change your thesis along the way as you start doing research.

This is the week you “put it all together” and begin outlining and drafting your research paper. You will use the biographical information you gathered on your poet, the 3rd Essay that you wrote from the Writing in the Zones exercise, and your research from the library database (literary criticism on your chosen poem). Remember “Bird by Bird” and give yourself permission to write a $#iTty! first draft. Use the writing process to write down your ideas. Once you have ideas in front of you then you can make revisions.Sometimes it is helpful to look at a sample so you have a clear idea of how all of these parts come together. I have posted a sample research paper. Check out the thesis, the way the student incorporates sources of biographical information, historical information as well as literary criticism (indicated by citations). Don’t forget to also quote from your poem to show what lines you are looking at in your analysis!!To help you with writing this paper there are two worksheets: 1/the research worksheet that you can print off and use for each literary criticism source. This worksheet will help you build paragraphs as you analyze what scholars are saying about this poem. 2/the outline worksheet will help you organize your ideas.Once you have a rough outline (it can be bullets) and a rough draft and a works cited page, you will submit these parts, in that order and in one word document.  Be sure to check out the link Owl.English.Purdue for how to create complete citations for a works cited page. (You can cut and paste these citations from the databases…check out the toolbars on the side of the databases that indicate citations and choose MLA).You will also sign up for next week’s conferences where I will meet with you to go over your research paper outline/draft/works cited page. This is an informal chat and is meant to be helpful. If your paper is missing anything or veering off course, I can help you get on track. I can also answer any questions you may have.

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A brief infographic and description of the five basic steps of the Writing Process: prewriting, drafting, workshopping, revising and editing, and submitting.