Your final draft should:
 Begin with an interesting and informative title
 Make a clear and concise claim (have a focused thesis that is underlined)
 Makes an argument about what the poem means
 Offers a variety of reasons to support your claim
 Use evidence from the texts of the work(s) to support your claim
 Uses three secondary sources
 Be carefully argued and clearly written
 Use diction and style appropriate to a formal essay
 Be free of grammatical and mechanical errors, including staple, default margins, and page #s
 Be double spaced and in Times New Roman, 12-pt. Font (no bold print)
 Follow MLA requirements including Works Cited, in text citations, page format, etc.
Your discussion, in addition to analyzing the meaning of the poem at length, should use the vocabulary from the literary
terms sheet (e.g., imagery, metaphor, simile, theme, or any other literary term that applies to poetry).

As you look at the poem, consider what tools the author uses to create meaning in the poem:
 One of the things you may want to consider is the manner in which the speaker shows you the meaning of the
poem.
 What images are present in the poem that affects the way we view the message that the poem is trying to convey?
 Is there an overriding or extended metaphor in the poem(s)? If so, what?
 Is the poem allegorical? If so, to what?
 How does the form of the poem affect the meaning?
 How does the social atmosphere in which the poem was written affect it?
Don’t just answer these questions and call it an essay, but carefully read the poem and discover for yourself what the
poem means. Whatever you choose to focus on in this essay, remember to create an argument in your thesis and support
that argument throughout the essay with evidence from the poem and secondary sources. Please use at least three
secondary sources to support your thesis. You will also be asked to have a works cited page listing the poem and your
secondary sources. Your essay should be written in the third person. (No I, we, you, your).

Please Note: Assume that your reader has read the poem. Please do not write a “book report” essay where you just
summarize the poem.