This page presents examples of student work.
General
Essay guidelines (PDF)
Do’s and don’ts for your essays and how to format and quote.
Strategies for writing an effective introduction
Background on sonnets (PDF)
This goes with the reading assignments of Yeats and Wordsworth.
Assignments
| ASSIGNMENT DUE | ASSIGNMENT DETAILS |
|---|---|
| Week #2 |
Memorize ten lines of a poem(s) by either Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, or William Blake. Recitations will be during Week #2 and #3. In VendlerRead appendices pp. 659-685. Writing about poetry pp. 311-328. |
| Week #3 (background on sonnets) |
Read Wordsworth’s “My Heart Leaps Up,” and “The Solitary Reaper” and Yeats’ “Among School Children,” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “Down By the Salley Gardens,” Sailing to Byzantium," and “The Second Coming.” |
| Week #3 (readings) |
Read Wordsworth’s “My Heart Leaps Up,” and “The Solitary Reaper” and Yeats’ “Among School Children,” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “Down By the Salley Gardens,” and “Sailing to Byzantium.” Come to class with plentiful observations on “The World Is Too Much With Us.” Try to model what we did in class: read the poem many times, out loud too, turn it over and write down what you remember or what strikes you. You can return to the poem and keep writing. |
| Week #4 (paper 1) | (PDF) |
| Week #4 (readings) |
Vendler: pp. 27-47 and 107-133. Stevens, Wallace. “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm.” (Handout, post). ———. “The Plain Sense of Things.” Gluck, Louise. ‘The School Children." (Vendler, p. 33). |
| Week #4 (quiz) | On material in Vendler appendices 1 and 2; pp. 27-47 and 107-133. |
| Week #6 (paper 2) | (PDF) |
| Week #12 (paper 3) | (PDF) |
| Week #13 (paper 4 revision) | (PDF) |
Useful Links
MLA Style: English and Other Humanities
A system for documenting sources, which is set forth in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed. (New York, NY: MLA, 2003).
Link to Sixty-Six: The Journal of Sonnet Studies
Sixty-Six is devoted to the sonnet form, in English and the other languages.
Student Work
| STUDENT | ASSIGNMENTS |
|---|---|
| Tony McDonald | The house Was quiet and the World was calm (PDF) (Courtesy of Tony McDonald. Used with permission) |
| MIT student | Murder me so I may live (PDF) (Courtesy of MIT Student. Used with permission) |
| MIT student | A holy paradox (PDF) (Courtesy of MIT Student. Used with permission) |
