1. Pre-AP English II March 1, 2018
Come in, put your phones and bags away.
Anybody wanna read the poem you wrote yesterday?  Get it out, look at it, think about it.
C’moooonnnnn…..fortune favors the brave!

2. Poetry Explication Essay
What does explication mean?
Explication is the process of analyzing something in detail.
What is a poetry explication?
A poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem. Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem's plot and conflicts with its structural features.
Basically, a poetry explication is a short style analysis of a poem.

3. Writing your poetry explication…
Before writing your poetry explication, you need to choose a poem. The following poems are automatically approved for explication without further permission:
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas
“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes
“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost
“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning
“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (124)” by Emily Dickinson
“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
Other poems may be explicated with prior permission.

4. Writing your poetry explication…
T.P.—C.A.S.T.T.
TPCASTT is a way to glean information from your poem which will help you write a successful explication.
T – Title…look at the title before reading the poem
P – Paraphrase…translate the poem into your own words
C – Connotation…contemplate the poem beyond its literal meaning
A – Attitude (tone)…observe both the poet and the speaker’s tone
S – Shift…take note of any shifts in diction, speaker, tone, etc.
T – Title…examine the title again; this time with a more interpretive focus
T – Theme…determine the central idea of the poem

5. Writing your poetry explication…

6. Writing your poetry explication…
What to do now…
Pick the poem you want to explicate.
Read it thoroughly several times.
Annotate the poem using your close reading questions as a guideline.
Conduct a TP-CASTT analysis on it.
Begin your pre-writing: what do you want to write about?
Start writing!

7. Homework
Read through the poems on the list and pick one to explicate. Be prepared to tell me which poem you’ll be writing about tomorrow. If you want to explicate a different poem, bring me a copy of it tomorrow and I’ll consider it. Any poem you choose should be a serious poetic work.