Description
Instructions
For this reflection, we will practice being New Critics. Be sure to review Close Reading Strategies: A Process Approach from Unit 2, Reading Like a New Critic.
Chose a poem from this unit and Formulate a general question after your initial reading that identifies a problem—a tension—that is fruitful for discussion. (Consider your discussion posts and exchanges with your classmates).
Reread the work, paying particular attention to the question you posed. Take notes, which should be focused on your central question. Write an exploratory journal entry or blog post that allows you to play with ideas.
Construct a working thesis that makes a claim about the work and accounts for the following:
What does the work mean?
How does the work artistically demonstrate the theme you’ve identified?
“So what” is significant about the work? That is, why is it important for you to write about this work? What will readers learn from reading your interpretation?
Reread the text to gather textual evidence for support. What literary devices are used to achieve theme?
Construct an informal outline that demonstrates how you will support your interpretation.
You are submitting step 3 and 5, the thesis statement and informal outline demonstrating your support. Use the “Response Paper Outline Form” to complete the assignment and submit it here. Feel free to build off of your discussion post(s) or ideas that you generated there.
Just to be clear — You are working as a New Critic and submitting a thesis and an outline
These are the poems to choose from
ALL ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS AND RESOURCES ARE ATTACHED
They can be found on POETRYFOUNDATION.COM
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Anecdote of the Jar
If I Told Him
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
I Sit and Sew
The Gift