Click here to read my example of an essay.
Here are the steps we reviewed in class:
1. Use a dictionary. PLEASE. Look up ALL words you may not know.
2. Read the poem out loud several times. In addition, you should expect to have to read the poem several more times to yourself. You CAN NOT expect to understand a poem by reading it once or twice.
3. Summarize each line. Explain it in your own words. Write this information down. Many lines of poetry speak figuratively, and you need to make sure you understand what each line means. Also, the poet might have used big words, or put the words in a complicated order making it hard to understand.
4. Decide what the main idea is, or the point of the poem. Write it down.
5. Write questions to answer. Ask as many questions as you can think of about the poem. Write them down, and answer them in your essay. Be careful not to just come up with unanswerable questions.
6. Think of things to compare the poem to, such as events in your life, another poem, etc.
7. Do anything else that helps you get to the meaning. Talk it over with your parents, siblings, or friends. Remember Whitman’s advice. And, if you use an idea you got somewhere else, you need to give credit where credit is due.
8. Go over ALL the lit terms. See how many the author uses. You can spend one whole paragraph (well, technically a LOT more than that!) discussing the author's use of poetic devices.
O.K. You’ve done all that. But you’re not finished. You have to write an essay. An essay is a group of paragraphs that all discuss a common thing. Each paragraph contains a separate idea, and each paragraph begins with a topic sentence and then EVERY SENTENCE in the paragraph supports that topic sentence.
You need an introductory paragraph. What you write here is pretty much up to you, but it is a good place to state the main idea of the poem, summarize it very briefly, state the title and the author, and generally make general statements.
In the next paragraphs, discuss all of the things you did in the above seven steps, but don’t number your sentences, or handle each one awkwardly. You need to blend the information you have so that each of your sentences flows easily.
It isn’t always necessary to summarize each line of a poem, but if you do explain several lines, refer to the line numbers. DO NOT copy the entire poem word for word.
Once you are finished writing your essay, you must READ it out loud several times!!! Correct all of your spelling and grammar errors. Make sure each sentence makes sense. Then, you must do a REWRITE!!! Yes, writers rewrite their writing, several times.