SNOW DAY HOMEWORK Students, These assignments are taking the place of the lessons we would have had in school. They are also here to help prepare you for your assignment due on Tuesday for our poetry essays. Make sure you read all directions carefully and email me with any questions. The first assignment, Part I, reflects what we would be doing in class on Thursday. The second assignment, Part II, reflects what we would be going over on Friday to prepare you for your weekend homework. The third assignment, Part III, reflects what we would be doing the second half of class on Friday. Please note that all three assignments are due on www.turnitin.com by the time class starts on Tuesday. Organize your time wisely on our little snow holiday! Best, Ms. Gelso p.s. I realize I am being presumptuous by including work on Friday! If we have school on Friday, we will adjust as necessary.

PART I. Understanding How to Read the Critical Essay Critical essays, also called peer-reviewed journal articles, are written by people, often but not always professors, who have advanced knowledge of a particular subject area. These essays are well researched and reliable. They are what your essays should look like by the time you finish college or university. Unfortunately, while critical essays so important for researching, they are some of the most difficult texts to read. The language is often dry and jargon (specialized terminology) is rampant. This is all because they are written for an academic audience who likely has a deep understanding of the topic of the essay. All this being said, you can make reading critical essays easier by looking for and annotating some of the conventions of essays while you read. For example, every essay has a thesis statement (even if it is split into a few sentences), and locating that thesis statement will right away help you understand the argument of a paper. What becomes difficult with even this strategy, however, is that by the time your essays are so advanced and developed, your introductions become larger, too. Not all introductions are one paragraph long by the time you are writing ten, twenty, and thirty page papers. It is up to you to discern the structure of an essay by asking yourself where the background ends and analysis begins. To practice reading critical essays, choose one of the samples listed on the Resources page of our Homework Central site. They are titled “Sample Essay 1: Marlowe and Raleigh,” “Sample Essay 2: Marlowe and Raleigh,” and “Sample Essay 3: Marlowe and Raleigh.” Each essay is related to “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd.” If I were writing an essay about those two poems, I would want to read these three essays to gain a deeper understanding of what has already been written about them. For this activity, choose just ONE of those three essays. Read and annotate. Then, answer the following questions. Please type your responses and submit them to www.turnitin.com by the time class starts on Tuesday.

1. What is the title of the essay you have chosen to read? 2. What is the thesis statement of the essay? 3. How does the title of the essay relate to the argument of the essay? 4. Summarize the essay in one paragraph. 5. Choose one interesting idea presented in the essay. Explain what that idea is and what you think about it.

Do you agree? Do you disagree? Why? Write one paragraph.

PART II. Annotated or Working Bibliography Imagine that you go to a party. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress. When you are writing a paper that requires the use of secondary sources, it is important to read many different critical essays about the same topic because when you write an essay about a particular topic or text you are entering into a type of conversation. Imagine that conversation to be like the one described above. The poems you have chosen are well known, and people have been writing about them for years. So now, you must learn about what others have written and contribute to what has been said, or in other words, enter into the conversation. What is something new that you can add to the body of research that has already been done? You might find that you agree with part of someone’s argument or none of it. You might find that you agree with someone’s argument, but that there is something that has been left out. In these ways, your essay can contribute to what has already been said about the poem/s you have chosen. So, while the required minimum for your paper is one critical essay, it makes sense to read many more. Now is the time to really figure out which essays relate to your topic and how you feel about them in response. Your annotated bibliography, also called a working bibliography, should be a list of these essays you are currently exploring in addition to the poem/s you are researching and any other sources you are considering using. Your annotated bibliography will help give me an idea of how you are developing your topic and help me further direct you. On Tuesday, turn in your annotated bibliography to www.turnitin.com by the time class starts. You should include the poem/s you are analyzing and at least three sources you are considering using. These three additional secondary sources should come either from Gale, Bloom’s, or JSTOR (please use these instead of Google Scholar, which is often difficult and limited). Your annotated bibliography should be in correct MLA format. Below each source, you should include a brief paragraph (minimum 3-4 sentences) that summarize the source and reflect upon any statements or ideas from the source that might be useful or pertinent to your paper. Your research question should be indicated at the top of your annotated bibliography. For extra guidance, check out the sample annotated bibliography on Homework Central. The link is called “Sample Annotated Bibliography.”

PART III. Reflecting on Renaissance Poetry Write your own original poem, choosing one of the following options:

1. Write your own Shakespearean love sonnet. Remember to mimic the form of the sonnet. You must incorporate three examples of visual imagery; one example of EITHER tactile, auditory, gustatory, or olfactory imagery; one simile; and one metaphor.

2. Choose a painting that was created during the renaissance (a few ideas below!). Write a lyric poem based on that painting. You must incorporate three examples of visual imagery; one example of EITHER tactile, auditory, gustatory, or olfactory imagery; one simile; and one metaphor. Make sure you copy/paste a picture of the painting beneath the poem you write.

3. Write your own pastoral. Remember that pastoral poems reflect upon beautiful landscapes and often depict the settings as innocent (however, if you’d like to include some sort of critique of the pastoral, as Raleigh does in “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” you may do so). You must incorporate three examples of visual imagery; one example of EITHER tactile, auditory, gustatory, or olfactory imagery; one simile; and one metaphor.

Your poem should be submitted to www.turnitin.com by the time class meets on Tuesday.