Purpose
Our first major essay for this class is an examination of poetic and musical verse. Your task is to use both music and poetry to argue a position on how the two art forms are connected. You will be close reading and analyzing an example of each type of text in order to do this.
This essay is shorter and more direct than the essays we will be writing later in the semester. It’s intended to get us used to writing again, to be brief enough to complete quickly, and to help us identify any writing skills we need to brush up on.
Task
To answer this prompt, you need to cite and analyze at least one song and at least one poem. The song can be any of your choosing, as long as there are lyrics for you to analyze. The poem can be any written by one of the authors on our poetry authors list, found on Canvas and included below.
Your prompt is:
In what ways are music and poetry connected, both in terms of their structure and their meaning? To best answer this prompt, you should select texts that you think have similar themes, points, or greater meanings in order to compare how they cover similar ideas in different ways.
When picking a song, use your best judgement in terms of appropriate subject matter. There is no song too inappropriate for this essay, BUT you should pick a song that you are comfortable quoting from, writing about, and discussing with your peers and instructor.
Poetry Options
Any of the poets from our Composition and LiteratureLinks to an external site. textbook, starting in Section III: Poetry
Any of the poets from our https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=english-textbooks . textbook, starting on page 48
Amiri Baraka
Amanda Gorman
Pablo Naruda
Anne Sexton
Requirements
A strong thesis statement that makes clear what argument you’re going to make.
12-point font, double spaced, Times New Roman
3 full pages
Citations from one song of your choosing
Citations from one poem written by the author of your choosing from our authors list
A works cited page
Process
Brainstorming your texts
You need to select at least two texts to use in this essay, one song and one poem.
The song can be any of your choosing, as long as it has lyrics. You should also keep content in mind; there are no restrictions, but make sure to pick a song that you’re comfortable writing about, quoting directly, and discussing with peers and your instructor.
The poem must be from an author from the Poetry Options list, available above and on the assignment pages on Canvas. There are a lot of options available in our course’s assigned textbooks, linked digitally on the Poetry Options list.
To select your texts, you should start by reading a selection of poetry and then brainstorm using the method of your choosing to identify a theme or meaning you are interested in investigating further. You can also start this process with music. Regardless of which text you start with, your aim should be to find two texts with themes or meanings you think overlap in a way that will be interesting to write about.
Once you have selected your texts, you should start the writing process by completing the Poem Citation Worksheet and Music Citation Worksheet. The order is up to you. These worksheets are intended to help you find the interesting parts of each text, figure out how to use them, select some citations, and write a works cited entry.
Writing the scaffold
Once you’ve selected your texts, you can start working on the scaffold. An essay scaffold is an outline – the goal when you create one is to prewrite a large portion of your essay in a useful order, so that when your write your first draft you already have a lot of set up done and have a good idea of what you need to talk about and where in the essay.
We will write a scaffold for each of our essays. Each will ask you to do the same thing – generate a working thesis, answer some questions about your introduction, fill out a number of paragraph sandwiches, and answer some questions about your conclusion. We are going to work on the first scaffold extensively in class, and will likely have class time set aside for the other scaffolds as well.
The scaffolds are laid out in the order you should work in. Start by generating a thesis, then fill out the information needed for your introduction, then fill out the tables for each body paragraph, then fill out the information needed for the conclusion.
The first thing you’re going to come up with is a thesis statement. A thesis statement can be revised and improved, just like any other part of your essay. Start with a “working thesis,” which is a thesis strong enough to get you writing, rather than trying to get the perfect thesis first. It’s easier to have a thesis that helps you write a draft then go back and change it. It’s quite common to begin a draft writing about one thing and then shift to writing about something similar but not identical. In this case, it’s better to change your thesis to match what you actually wrote about.
Some of the scaffolding information, like the thesis, will be repeated. Additionally, some of this information is going to be drawn from the citation worksheets, and can be copied over directly. This is on purpose; you’ll be returning frequently to important information.
What to include and where
Introduction
Your introduction should introduce your topic, include a thesis that asserts your argument, and make brief mention of the song and poem you intend to analyze.
First Analysis Paragraph
Your first analysis paragraph should include your analytical explication of either your poem or song, including a close look at its verse structure and a discussion of its figurative language.
Second Analysis Paragraph
Your second analysis paragraph should work like your first analysis paragraph, and analyze either your poem or song, whatever you didn’t pick for the first paragraph.
One to Two Comparative Paragraphs
Over the course of at least one and possibly two paragraphs, you should support your thesis by comparing how your poem and song use language, structure, and meaning. This is where you assert how music and poetry use similar characteristics to convey similar meaning.
Conclusion
Your conclusion should reassert your thesis and the arguments you made to support it. You should end your essay buy opening up your claims to apply them more broadly.
What should you analyze?
There are two big categories of things worth looking at when analyzing verse: language and structure.
Language
Analyzing language means looking at the actual words being used, what they literally mean, and what they mean figuratively. Common things worth examining are metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and allusions, along with the emotional impact the language is trying to create.
Structure
Analyzing structure means looking at how lines of verse are structured, how sound is used, and how that influences the work’s meaning. Common things worth examining are rhyme scheme, poetic meter, alliteration and assonance, onomatopoeia, and other repetition of sounds.
