Below are the criteria for your essay on poetry. In addition to adhering to the criteria, you must also write clear, intelligent, and grammatically correct prose, consistent with college-level standards. These standards are explained on my website, under grading.Please remember that intelligent thoughts require accurate expression.

1. Choose a poem from our Robert Frost text, and write a critical analysis of it. Unless you take a completely different approach to a poem we have discussed in class--and have my approval to write on it--you should avoid poems that we talked about.

2. Choose a single theme that you believe emerges from the poem. The theme, which will be your thesis statement for the essay, should reflect your opinion regarding what the author is saying about the topic you have chosen. Please don't use a cliche to state this theme, and don't dwell on the obvious. The theme is, after all, the most important sentence of the essay because it provides unity and focus for your discussion. If you need help with what a thesis is, visit my website and click on thesis statement.

3. Now select a character (it may be the narrator), incidents, and imagery from the poem that support this theme. The purpose of this part of your essay is not to paraphrase the poem line-by-line or stanza-by-stanza-because that would be terribly boring. Rather, your purpose is to argue that your opinion is a valid reading of the poem. You do this by analyzing the specific details of the poem to fit into your argument.

4. A substantial section of your essay should discuss the writer's style. In class, we have discussed diction, tone, figurative language (metaphor, simile, synecdoche, personification), alliteration, assonance, consonance, end rhyme, and rhythm. A good poet will often reflect the theme through language, so that the form the poem takes (style) usually mirrors its content (subject matter). Be careful here. I don't want a shopping list of the poetic devices the writer uses. I want to know how the style complements and emphasizes the theme.

5. Now step back and in a developed paragraph or two, provide a substantial evaluation of this writer's handling of the theme, content, and style. Is this is good poem or a bad poem? And why? Is the language appropriate, rich? Are the images sensuous, the theme handled maturely?

6. Use three additional sources outside your text to support your views. Go to the library and search for critics of the poet. Find out something about the poet's views, philosophy, themes, etc. Please confine yourself to literary criticism. Be sure that the research is scholarly and that it legitimately supports your point. But do NOT waste time in your essay discussing the poet's biography, even if you think that Frost's life influenced this poem. Stick to the poem; forget the biography.

7. Document according to the MLA form of in-text documentation and a Works Cited page. I have samples of this documentation on my website, under documentation.

8. The essay should be at least 1200 words--about four complete pages. In no way am I implying that the length of an essay reflects its quality. But length does reflect the development and thoroughness appropriate for the assignment. If you are writing 750 words, don't ask "How can I find more words to meet the requirement?" Rather, you should ask, "How can I study the poem more thoroughly to develop my ideas?"

9. No more than 15% of the essay should appear in direct quotations.

10. Type the paper and double space everything in it. Please use a 12 point font. Use a paper clip to bind the pages.

11. Proofread your essay.

Show me a rough draft, and work on the essay in a way that the writing helps you to understand and enjoy the poem more thoroughly. GOOD LUCK!