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POETRY PROJECT GUIDELINES 2015
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To start the fourth quarter, we will do a poetry project that requires each student to research one
American poet, analyze his or her works, and learn as much as possible about the the literary era
or eras represented by the poet’s work. This project will require MLA-style documentation and
illustrations of the poet, the poet’s themes, tone, and topics. The project will also help students
refine skills in rhetorical analysis and writing personal poems. "
Poetry Project Background Activities
• Students will practice identifying elements of valid research, such as the use of sources, the accuracy of
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information provided, and the publication or web site in which the information appears. The first
documents they examine will be articles that cover themes about civil disobedience and censorship,
These documents tie in with other literary assignments from the first and second semesters, but require
the same analytical skills students will use to determine the validity of research documents used in the
poetry project. • After completing the analysis of the articles, and discussing what constitutes valid research, students
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will review selected rhetorical strategies on a class handout before using the handout as a resource for
analyzing a poem.
• To analyze the poem, students will practice annotating rhetorical strategies, identifying rhyme schemes,
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and discovering meter used by Edgar Allan Poe to achieve different moods in “The Raven”. Students
will learn how to use authoritative web sites like Shmoop and The Poetry Foundation to find
background information on various poets and their works. In this case, the students will discover how
Shmoop provides useful analysis of rhetorical strategies in “The Raven,” and the students will see what
the Poetry Foundation reveals about Poe’s life and the effect it had on his work.
• To complete this analysis, students will fill out a TPCASTT form for “The Raven”. The students will
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identify themes and tone in the poem, as well as the rhetorical techniques that characterized this work. • After completing the TPCASTT, students will investigate other Poe source sites and documents
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recommended by the Poetry Foundation and Shmoop. This is how they will do research for the poet
they choose to profile for the project. In both cases, students will learn how to cite the web site articles
MLA style.
• While finding out about Poe, students will write one paragraph paraphrasing one of the articles that
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documents his life. Students will use a parenthetical citation for this paraphrased paragraph. They will
also create a full MLA-style citation that would be used on a Works Cited page for a research paper
about Poe.
• Students may use a quote in this writing activity so they learn how to include quotes in their research
papers about a different poet. The alternative will be to use a quote for the second part of this practice
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• Students will receive a handout on American Poetry Literary Eras so they become familiar with terms
like . also identify the American literary era is represented by Poe’s work. Again, students will write a
paragraph paraphrasing what they have learned about Poe’s contribution to a particular era. Students
will be doing the same thing for whichever poet they research. "
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Poetry Project Bridging Activities
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• Before starting their Poetry Project Notebooks, students will read a variety of short poems like haikus,
tankas, a sonnet or two, and a free verse poem.
• These poetry reading activities will allow students to practice rhetorical analysis, recognition of
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rhyming schemes, themes, tone, and meter. It will also prepare them to write and illustrate four
personal poems of their own: one haiku, one tanka, one sonnet and one free verse poem. These poems
will be included in the final Poetry Project Notebook. • For these personal poems, students will strive to create the right meter, rhyme schemes, and use of
rhetorical strategies that are evident in the work of professional poets. "
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Poetry Project Notebooks and Point Values
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• This project will require you to create a Poetry Project Notebook worth 700 points. The Notebook will
be divided into four sections:
- Section One will include two short research papers: the poet biography paper and the literary
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era paper, which explains the poet’s contribution to American literary history. See Research
Paper Details below for more information on these two papers. Each paper is worth 100 points. Section Two will include TPCASTT analyses of two significant poems written by the poet; the
poems must be included with each analysis, and each poem should include an illustration
representing the topic, the theme, or the tone of the poem. Each Analysis is worth 100 points.
Section Three should include copies of a Keynote Slide presentation or pictures of a poster
board that will used to illustrate an oral presentation to the class. This section is worth 100
points. Section Four will include the four personal poems, each with an illustration of the topic, or the
theme, or the tone. The haiku and tanka are worth 25 points each. The sonnet and the free verse
poem are worth 50 points each. • All four parts of the project will easily fit into a thin, three-hole, cardboard folder.
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• The folder cover should include a title with the poet’s name, an illustration, and the student’s name.
The folder and cover work are worth 50 points.
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• Again, the value of the Notebook is 700 points. "
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Choosing a Poet for the Project Research "
• Students in each class period will participate in a drawing.
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• Each student will draw three names from a pot with the names of 100 American poets.
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• Each student will do some preliminary research on each of three names.
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• Each student will then choose one poet for this project.
• Edgar Allen Poe will NOT be among the names.
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• After the drawing and the poet decision process is done, we will go to the library to do some research. "
• You will seek hard-copy sources to supplement computer research. "
• You will NOT be allowed to check this material out because so many other students will be needing
access to it for their projects. However, you will have a chance to go back to the library to get pithy
quotes, specific illustrations, or to complete your MLA citations.
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Research Paper Details
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• One research paper will be a biography and the second paper will be an analysis of the poet’s literary
era — or eras — that are most representative of the poet’s work. In both papers, the focus should be on
what makes this poet’s work uniquely worthy of American Literary merit?
• The Biography Research Paper should be two-to-three-pages long, double-spaced, Times New
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Roman regular font.
- Biographical information about the poet should include things like life and death dates, family
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and educational background, regional/geographical influences, greatest works, notable awards
and other distinctions, plus any unusual tidbits of information that might be interesting to other
students learning about this poet.
The paper should include a minimum of three reliable sources (sources with bibliographical
citations and identifiable writers).
These sources might be excerpts from books, articles in scholarly journals, articles in
encyclopedias, or articles published by research institutions like universities and the Poetry
Foundation. NONE of the information in this research paper is to be plagiarized or copied-and-pasted from
a source. Most of the information in this biography should be paraphrased and synthesized
from the different sources. Plagiarized papers will be zeroed with no chance for do-overs.
All information — paraphrased or quoted — must be attributed parenthetically to the sources
used.
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All sources should be noted at the end of the paper on a Works Cited page, using MLA style
citations in alphabetical order. most online sources provide the formatted sources for you, but
we can also use Citation Machine to format sources. "Any quotes used should not exceed 40 words.
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• For the Literary Era Research Paper, students will write a one-to-two page informative paper
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explaining the significance of the literary era in which the poet made his or her greatest contributions.
- Again, the research should include at least three sources.
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Most of the information should be paraphrased and synthesized.
- Plagiarism will be an automatic zero.
"Again, parenthetical citations must be used in the body of the paper.
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A Works Cited page must be included for the sources used in the paper.
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Project Completion and Final Points
Submit the poetry notebook and then share your 3indings in an oral presentation to the class. This presentation will be worth 200 points.