Writing the Poetry FRQ

The Poetry Question Annotate the prompt! Read the piece carefully, interacting with the text as you read. Note where you draw conclusions. Allow the piece to evolve! Be ready for shifts, change, and development. Paraphrase the meaning. Write your killer introduction, and remember to Bounce!!!!! Organize your essay chronologically: analyze the beginning thoroughly, then analyze the middle (again, accounting for shifts and development), then analyze the end and what it all means. Spend time on your explanations of your claims and evidence. This is the part where people fail to fully develop their essay, and the part where the rubber hits the road.

Bounce to Start off Strong! William Wordswoth, in his romantically optimistic poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” uses metaphor, personification, and flashback to examine the importance of man’s connection to nature and how that connection makes our souls thrive . To bounce, answer the question: William Wordswoth, in his romantically optimistic poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” examines the importance of man’s connection to nature and how that connection makes our souls thrive . If you want to “signpost” your essay, don’t bury your lead:

What “Explain” Means Instead of, “After the shift the author uses longer sentences, which helps the reader to really picture what’s going on. This illustrates how passive humans can be.” An explanation should be, “After the shift the author uses longer sentences, with extended details and vivid imagery. Including such similar, listed details as, ‘summer days, hot days, lazy days,’ the author creates a vivid scene that readers can picture, pulling them in as if they are participants in the day; this in turn emphasizes the overall theme of human passivity.” This is a writing test and your challenge to is balance a discussion of theme and meaning with a discussion of author’s style. The most straightforward approach is to make strong claims about what the whole piece means, and prove that by showing how the author accomplished this.

Finally Don’t approach this as “I need to get an essay written.” Approach it as “I need to demonstrate that I have learned something about analyzing and writing about poetry.”