EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPH #2: Research Experience

EIR: February 2012

Day 1CW: Poetry Test

HW: Vocab Unit 13 & 14 p.51-58, 179-184 (front & back pages)

Day 2CW: 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 4CW: 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 5CW: 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 6CW: Review expository format/ topic sentences; Review note

Cards; Discuss plagiarism

HW: Complete research (one more article, two more note

cards)

Day 7CW: Coming up with focuses

HW: Drafting work

Day 8CW: Topic Sentence work; Choosing examples; Organization –

sample outline

HW: Complete outline; Drafting worksheet

Day 9CW: Bring note cards; Incorporating Research into Outline;

Easy Writer Section 40: Integrating quotations

HW:Complete rough draft; Bring typed draft to class

Day 10CW: Peer review; Works Cited Page format

HW: Content revisions; Complete Works Cited page

Day 11CW: Style work; Final reminders—see teachers for help HW: Style revisions

Day 12CW: 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 devicesthat 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”:

“Lorcadescribed his ownpoetryin 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,poetryconsists 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 thebodiesthat are controlled by the night or that are subjects of the night. They are, in fact, controlling the night. The metaphor here of thebodiesbeing 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:

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' toKing Lear."Papers on Language & Literature34.2 (Spring 1998): 207-217. Rpt. inPoetry 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"Donotgogentle"is neither so firm in purpose nor so sure of the righteousness of his position, and neither wasThomas: In the letter submitting the poem for publication,Thomasnoted 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" (Letters359), 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) todoanything 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"Donotgogentle"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:

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 themirrorinto which she gazes. She is the woman as male-defined ideal or as the idealmanqué,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 themirroras passive servant, the preconditionless object whose perception is a form of helpless swallowing or absorption. The image that finally appears in themirror, the old woman as "terrible fish," is the opposite or "dark" side of themirror. She is themirrorwho 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 themirror/woman, and the result is a human replication of the linguistic phenomenon the poem becomes. Violating its implicit claim, the poem becomes amirrornot 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 themirrorand seeing, not the pleasing young girl, but the terrible fish.”

Citation:

Freedman, William. "The Monster in Plath's 'Mirror,'."Papers on Language and Literature108.5 (Oct. 1993): 152-169. Rpt. inContemporary 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 byFadwaTuqan
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. “FadwaTuqan: An Arab Electra”. Trans. ElieChalia. 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

BillyBobMcGoogle