Thesis statement for my papa's waltz and those winter sundays

Paper Three Assignment Sheet: Literary Synthesis

Directions: For the third paper assignment, you will synthesize two poems by exploring how the theme(s), ideas, and topics from each poem relate. The first poem you select for this assignment should be from our textbook, Making Literature Matter. You may select any poem from our book except the poems you wrote about for Papers One and Two. You will research and select your second poem from the Poetry Foundation website: http://www.poetryfoundation.org. Requirements and Due Dates: This paper should be in MLA format, should include quotes from each poem with correct in-text citations, and should be 4-5 pages long. Your Works Cited page will have two entries: one for the poem from our textbook, and one for the poem from the Poetry Foundation website. This paper is out of 175 points possible.

• November 7th: Paper Three Rough Draft due for Peer Review Workshop (25 points)—please bring 3 copies to class to receive full points.

• Final Draft of Paper Three due Sunday, November 13th on Blackboard by 11:59pm (175 points).

Synthesis Definition Synthesis “brings together” two or more texts by examining the authors’ similar and different portrayals of a common theme. You will use the writing skills you developed in Paper Two as you analyze both poems to identify connections between them. So far this semester we’ve read poems on family relationships (father/son, mother/daughter, mother/son, grandparent/grandchild), love (passionate, melancholy), death (how to face it, perceive it, prepare for it), race (bigotry, stereotyping, and injustice), and class (facing poverty, class difference awareness). Generally, I have assigned two poems per theme category listed above, so you have already been reading poems the textbook editors see thematic connections between. The poems have explored the same themes in very different ways; for example, “Those Winter Sundays” and “My Papa’s Waltz” both show a son’s complicated childhood memories of his father, the memories and emotions the authors use to convey this contain similarities and differences (both fathers are laborers that show love in different ways— quiet action vs. rough-housing). A paper on those poems would highlight the similar theme while organizing the body paragraphs around the authors’ similar and different approaches to showing that same theme. In “When Death Comes” and “On Death, Without Exaggeration” both authors challenge the power and influence death has over us (both authors personify death to show its strengths and weaknesses; both poems show the importance and power of living your life to the fullest in the face of death). Your job in writing a synthesis is to find connections in subject matter/theme between two poems and highlight the ways the authors approach and view that subject. Often those approaches and views are different; however, the general topic/subject should be the same for this paper. Each body paragraph should highlight one specific connection between the poems through textual evidence (from both poems), interpretation, and analysis.

Some good news: Choosing the poem from the textbook will be easy! We have read, discussed, and written about every poem assigned so far this semester—look back to your prewriting (Close Reading in 9 Steps sheet, Making a Poetry Chart sheet), journal assignments, and class notes for reminders on the poems that challenged and moved you; choose among those. If you did not like any of the assigned poems this semester, treat this paper as an opportunity to write about a poem in the book you noticed on your own and wished I had assigned. Also remember that each poem in our book is categorized by theme: family poems, social issues of justice, race, and class, love poems, and death poems, giving you a solid place to start for your Poetry Foundation research because the poems on the website are also organized by subject and theme. Research and Drafting Steps

1. Select a poem from the book; prewriting: Pick a poem from the textbook and make sure you complete your Close Reading Steps and Poetry Chart on your chosen poem. Even if you already have notes or prewriting on this poem, add to it! The more you understand this poem the better prepared you’ll be to find a similar poem on the website. Make use of the Table of Contents at the beginning of our textbook—Part Two: Literature and Its Issues (on page xxii) breaks down the literature by theme. Pick a theme that interests you and start there. Remember, all the poems in the book are available for you to use except the poems you wrote on for Papers One and Two.

2. Researching Instructions: Next, go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org, and type your textbook poet’s full name into the search engine at the top right of the webpage. Oftentimes, a poet will explore the same topic, or even theme, in many of the poems they write. Read through the poems by that same author provided on the website (there probably won’t be more than 10 to read through). A really interesting approach to this assignment would be to compare two poems on the same topic by the same author, as long as one poem comes from our textbook, and the other comes from the website.

a. If researching by author doesn’t work out, you’ll need to research by subject instead. Click on Poems & Poets, Browse Poems, and then refine your search by selecting SUBJECT. When you click on a subject, a list of subtopics will pop up for you to choose from; these will help you refine your search even more. My advice is to check out all of the subtopics so you have an overall idea of how the poetry editors/experts who run the website categorize theme. For example, a general theme category of Plath’s “Mirror” (that I came up with in my prewriting) could be fear of aging. Under SUBJECT, I clicked on Living and found subtopics that relate to that theme--Midlife, Growing Old, Death, and The Body.

b. If you end up researching by SUBJECT, the following will be helpful to you: After selecting Growing Old, 481 poems come up (4 web-pages

long). The list includes titles and the first three lines of the poems. Tackle page 1 of your search results by reading those, and deciding from there which titles to click on that you think might most relate to your first poem. I clicked on “The Wicked One Goes to the Make-up Counter” (the 4th title in the list) because the words “make-up” (in the title) and “beauty” (in the first line) made me think of the speaker in “Mirror”. Once the whole poem pops up, I quickly save it in a file on my desktop and move on to gather more potential poems by scanning through the 2nd and 3rd pages of results under Growing Old. Then I move on to the other subtopic categories (Midlife, Death, and The Body) following that same method. I do not read the full text of any of the poems I’ve saved until I have compiled a folder of AT LEAST 15 poems. When I’ve got a nice pool of about 15 poems to select from, then I carefully read them all and make my selection.

3. Finding Connections: Next, complete the Close Reading Steps and Poetry

Chart for your website poem so you know it as well as your textbook poem. Doing so should help you begin to see how the two poems connect and relate. Keep in mind that the poems do not have to exhibit the same views/feelings/opinions on the topic they address, but both poems should share a general topic, or Unified Concept. For example: “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke both explore relationships between the speakers and their fathers. That is enough of a Unified Concept to make comparing those two poems worth writing about. Roethke and Hayden show these complications in different ways. Next, you should think about 2-3 comparisons you can make between your two poems. Roethke and Hayden show the complicated father/son relationships in two major ways: through the fathers’ actions and the sons’ reactions. Figuring out the Unified Concept and the Major Comparisons will help you form your thesis statement and essay map, effectively setting up the framework for your paper.

4. Writing a Thesis Statement: For your thesis statement, show the overarching

connection in topic between the two poems by stating their Unified Concept.

o Sample thesis statement: “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke both explore the relationship between the speakers and their fathers.

5. Writing an Essay Map: To plan for your body paragraphs, develop 2-3 main

points that describe the authors’ similar or different portrayals of the Major Comparisons you’ve found after completing your Close Reading Steps.

o Sample essay map: This relationship is shown through the speakers’

childhood memories of their fathers’ actions, and through the sons’ responses to those actions.

6. Compiling textual evidence via quotes and paraphrases from both poems that reveal the authors’ portrayals of the Major Comparisons. Interpret the text to show how each author presents the Unified Concept—the author(s) will often approach this in different ways as no two poems are exactly the same. Then explain the Major Comparisons more thoroughly by further discussing the details and interpretations from both poems. Bringing ideas from two texts together requires a high level of critical thinking. Concentrate your paper on details from the poems that parallel each other by analyzing what each author does with the Major Comparisons you’ve found. A thorough outline for this paper’s organization will be provided next week when we begin drafting.