Poetry explication paper

aPoetry Explication Paper Assignment: This paper is to be a close reading of one of the poems assigned for this week (your choice). It should begin with a four-step introduction paragraph (in which you italicize your thesis statement). See the student paper posted above. (Note that it does not meet all the assignment requirements. If there is a difference, know that I am grading according the instructions below.)

Learn what the elements of a poem are first: View the PowerPoint Lecture for Module 2 for help on what theme, genre, versification, figures of speech, and cultural context mean in a poetry explication, and read about these in your textbook.
Two-part title: Your title should be a two-part title divided by a colon (:). On one side of the colon, give the name of the author and the poem (place the poem name in quote marks and don't italicize it). On the one side of the colon create a subtitle that points toward your thesis. Be sure to capitalize the first letter of each word both before and after the colon except short prepositions (like "of," "to,") and articles ("a," "an," and "the").
Four-step introduction paragraph: This paragraph contains your thesis statement (italicized) in the third sentence or step of the paragraph. See the Formatting Checklist in the syllabus for an example of this kind of introduction paragraph
Body of essay: After the four-step introduction paragraph write four more paragraphs--a paragraph for each of the following areas (be especially careful with the "cultural context" paragraph below). These four paragraphs form the body of your essay (after your introduction paragraph):
Theme: Use the word “theme” in your topic sentence for this paragraph as well as at least one word from your thesis statement. This connects your topic sentence to your thesis statement in the introductory paragraph. Here is an illustration from a nursery rhyme: If you were explicating the poem "Hickory Dickory Dock" and your thesis is that the poem captures how all-things-are-possible in the imagination of a child, here would be a bad topic sentence: The theme in the poem is of a cow jumping over the moon. This would be a good topic sentence, since it reconnects to the thesis statement: The theme of a cow jumping over the moon reflects a child's belief that the world is magical and one only needs to imagine the unthinkable.