1. Choose a poem we have read so far that you like and are intrigued by.
2. Use the library databases to find an article on that poem or on the poet who wrote it. It can be literary criticism (someone’s article about their interpretation of the poem) or biographical (details about the poet’s life and background). Don’t use an article about a different poem, though.
3. Read the article and highlight passages that you think are interesting, or that make good points. It’s okay if you don’t understand everything in the entire article – literary criticism can be challenging to read! Focus on the points that you do understand. If you feel like the entire article is confusing, choose a different one, though. No one wants you to feel lost and confused.
4. Write a brief paragraph (three or four sentences is great) about the poem or poet. Incorporate at least one quote from the poem and one quote from the article. Remember that quotes should be integrated into your own sentences. There’s an example below, but if you’d like more guidance on integrating quotations, click here for a link to the University of New Orleans’s article on quotation integration in research papers. If you’re not sure how to format your quote, click this link for the Purdue OWL guide.
5. Include internal citations for your quotations. Poems should be cited with author’s last name and a line number (line of the poem the quote comes from). Articles should be cited with author’s last name and a page number. There’s an example below, but if you need more help with internal citations, click this link for Purdue OWL’s guide to that.
6. Include a Works Cited list for your paragraph. It should include the poem and the article. Remember that the database can usually provide the citation in MLA format for you. For more help and examples of Works Cited page, click this link for the Purdue OWL guide to Works Cited pages.
Example Paragraph (incomplete Works Cited):
In Adrienne Rich’s poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” the speaker states ” When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie/Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.” (9-10). The speaker is making the claim that her aunt is controlled by the conflicts in her life. The speaker’s description gives readers as much information about her, the niece, as it does about the aunt. As one scholar argues, the speaker’s “metaphor serves more as the niece’s judgment than as an actual description” (Rizza 65). In particular, Rizza alludes to “finger fluttering through her wool/Find even the ivory needle hard to pull./The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band” (Rich 5-7). Michael Rizza sees this description as “contradictory,” and attributes the symbolic weight of the ring to “the niece’s judgment more than actual description” (65). It is not clear that Aunt Jennifer feels as weighed down as her niece perceives her to be.
Works Cited
Rich, Adrienne. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers.”
Rizza, Michal J. The “Split” in Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers. The Explicator, 67(1), 63-66. 2008.
