Paper 1

For your first formal paper, write a 3-4 page essay that compares and contrasts two poems.   Please use double-spacing, normal (one inch) size margins and normal (twelve-point) size type.   If your only source is our textbook, you do not need a works cited page.   Use MLA style for indicating line and page numbers.   A rough draft of the paper is due by September 10th.   The final draft is due on September 13th.

Please make sure to read pages 1584-1589 in our book; this section discusses the comparison/contrast paper.   As you write, use whatever terms and ideas from our book seem useful for interpreting, comparing, and contrasting the two poems you choose.   Make sure to address how the formal aspects of the poems (rhythm, rhyme, etc.) contribute to their overall effect and meaning. At the end of this assignment sheet you will find a list of my grading criteria for formal papers.

The challenge of a comparison/contrast paper is twofold:

• First, you need to pick two poems with enough differences from each other that you have some interesting contrasts to discuss but that also have enough in common that you have a reason for discussing them in the same paper together at all.  
• Second, you need to go beyond pointing out all their interesting similarities and differences.   It's easy to get so carried away with describing all the connections and points of contrast between the two poems that you forget to create a real thesis.   In the end, you need to say something about what all the similarities and differences add up to.   Ask yourself, "So what?"   Make sure your paper makes the answer clear.

Selecting Your Poems

The choice of poems is up to you.   One way to get some ideas is to look at the poems that the author of your textbook suggests pairing together in the "Connection to Another Selection" questions that sometimes come after the poems.   I've also put together a set of suggestions/examples below:

Looking Back on Childhood

Elizabeth Bishop, "Manners" (533)

Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays" (499)

One Poem Explicitly Refers to the Other

Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" (549)*

Diane Ackerman, "A Fine, a Private Place" (553-5)

Let's Stay in Bed

John Donne, "The Sun Rising" (723)

Richard Wilbur, "A Late Aubade" (552)

Standing Up to Death

John Donne, "Death Be Not Proud" (723)

Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle" (688)*

Spring (by authors named William)

William Wordsworth, "Lines Written in Early Spring" (906)

William Carlos Williams, "Spring and All" (905)

Carpe Diem

William Shakespeare, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold" (900)

E.E. Cummings, "since feeling is first" (866)

* If you choose to use a poem we've discussed in class, do your best to go beyond what we've covered in class in your paper.   Your paper should emphasize your original thinking about whatever poems you choose.

Developing a Thesis

It's very likely you won't know exactly what your thesis will be until after you've written a draft establishing your major points of comparison and contrast.   That's ok. Often, I find students discover their theses as they write and wind up putting them at the ends of their papers.   Again that's ok - for a rough draft.   Then you should rewrite and move that thesis statement up into the introduction and make sure the whole paper clearly supports it.

The sample paper in our book (pp. 1559-1563) does a good job of pulling together all the points about the two plays into an overall thesis statement in its introduction.   Still, I would say there's a question this introduction hasn't answered. What do we learn from looking at these two plays together that we wouldn't learn from looking at them separately?   Try to make sure your thesis answers this question (substituting "poems" for "plays"), either explicitly or implicitly.

Writing the Paper

As you write and revise your paper, keep in mind the following criteria, which I will use when I grade the papers. Please note that these criteria are listed in order of importance. (They should also be useful for peer response.) 

1. Is the paper focused? That is, does the essay have a clear overall thesis that all its parts contribute to? Is the nature and scope of the focus appropriate for the assignment and the length of the paper?

2. Is the paper's focus or thesis significant? In other words, do you make clear your readers should care about or be interested in the point of the essay?

3. Do you use enough details, quotes, and examples to back up your ideas and claims?

4. When you refer to or quote from a text, is your interpretation of the text clear? Do you back up or justify your interpretation if necessary?

5. Does the introduction catch the reader's attention and indicate what the paper will be about?

6. Does the conclusion leave the reader with a coherent sense of the author's overall point and its significance?

7. Is the paper clearly and logically organized?

8. Do you use good transitions between paragraphs and between ideas within paragraphs?

9. Are grammar, punctuation, and spelling problems minimal?

10. Is the writing style free of confusion and awkwardness?