What is your understanding of the final metaphor of disease in Louise Erdrich’s Dear John Wayne,? and the poem’s message/s about power? Discuss how Erdrich us

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ENG102: Composition II (Fall I 2024) Dr. Koh Assignment #1: Literary Analysis (Poetry)—approx. 650-700 words. Attention: Unauthorized and unacknowledged use of any form of A.I. for this assignment will be treated as a violation of CUNY’s academic integrity policy. See syllabus.

Format: Typed, 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1-inch margins (use assignment template created for you)

Deadline: By 11:59PM, Tuesday, Oct. 1 via our Google Classroom using the Google Doc created for you. You will not be able to submit after this time.

Please include the WORD COUNT of your essay. Goal: Literary analysis, and proper citation and integration of quotations or paraphrases Instructions: Choose ONE of the following to answer. The THESIS QUESTION AND TASKS are underlined.

1. What is the message or lesson about power in Willie Perdomo’s “123rdStreet Rap,” especially in the last 3 lines of the poem? Discuss how Perdomo uses sound effects, figures of speech and/or diction to express the message/s in his poem. Explain your answer and support it by quoting and analyzing specific details/words from the poem.

2. What is your understanding of the final metaphor of disease in Louise Erdrich’s “Dear John Wayne,” and the poem’s message/s about power? Discuss how Erdrich uses figures of speech— especially metaphors, motifs and symbols—to communicate its message. Explain your answer and support it by quoting and analyzing specific details/words from the poem.

a) Please use “Writing about Poems” chapter of the textbook, the textbook “Glossary” (187- 194), the Elements of Poetry notes, and Lesson Notes about the poets in our Google Classroom.

b) Do NOT confuse the poet with the speaker. Often, the poet’s position might be much clearer than the speaker’s perspective. Poet ≠ Speaker

c) Use the present tense when discussing the poem.

d) Use the correct format for the title of poems (“ ”).

e) Use a slash ( / ) to indicate line breaks.

f) Cite line numbers. For example: (3-4) means line 3 to line 4.

g) Do NOT provide a summary of the poem. Instead, focus on analyzing the literary

and figurative elements of the poem. Do not simply quote or describe the literal action of selected lines without analyzing the specific details of the quotations.

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Assignment #1 Evaluation Criteria: The Checklist Attention: Unauthorized and unacknowledged use of any form of A.I. for this assignment will

be treated as a violation of CUNY’s academic integrity policy. See syllabus.

INTRODUCTION

___Does your introduction include the poet’s full name? ___Have you named the title of your selected poem? ____Have you referred to the topic of the poem? ____Does your introduction include your thesis? ____Does your thesis respond specifically to the prompt?

BODY PARAGRAPHS (see page 3 of this assignment)

____Does each body paragraph focus on ONE main idea that supports your thesis? ____Does each body paragraph begin with a topic sentence, and end with a sentence that connects back to the thesis? ____Does each body paragraph develop the main idea by quoting specific details from the poem (textual evidence)? ____Is each quoted detail (evidence from the poem) explicated (explained) according to key elements of poetry (figurative language, sounds etc.) so that the reader is clear about how you have interpreted the evidence?

CONCLUSION

____Does your conclusion avoid referencing new (and hence undeveloped) subordinating ideas? ____Does your conclusion reference your selected poet and poem? ____Does your conclusion summarize your thesis and your argument in a new way? CITATION

AND INTEGRATION (consult handouts, and pages 43-51 and 146-152 of textbook)

____Did you use the “sandwich method” to integrate quotations from the poem into your essay? ____Did you provide the correct citation format for quotations? ____When you read a sentence that contains a quotation, did you check if that sentence is grammatical? For example, does that sentence have a clear subject and object? ____Did you provide your explanation of words quoted from the poem (bottom slice of sandwich) according to key elements of poetry?

GRAMMAR AND MECHANICS OF WRITING

____Have you proofread your essay at least twice? ____Have you reviewed your sentences to look out for sentence structure errors (check

independent and dependent clauses), fragments, comma splices, run-ons, verb/tense errors, and subject-verb agreement.

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BODY PARAGRAPH OUTLINE

Instructions: Organize your brainstorming ideas using the following chart to develop each body paragraph in your essay draft.

1. What is your topic sentence? What is the one main point you will focus on?

2. What evidence do you have for your main point? 3. What examples from the text will you quote as evidence?

4. What do your examples mean? Explain each detail in the quotation that you use. 5. What literary element does each detail represent? What figures of speech are used? 6. Are you merely summarizing or describing (summarizing or paraphrasing)

each detail? If yes, make sure to revise what you’ve written so that you focus on elements of literature, or choose quotations that focus on figurative language.

7. What is the connection between the main point of this paragraph and the thesis prompt?

8. What transitions have you used between your sentences, and between paragraphs to improve the flow and coherence of your writing?

• Repeat the above outline for all your body paragraphs. • Study the ENG102 essay checklist (page 2) and Essay Structure material on our Google

Classroom for descriptions of the ingredients of introductions and conclusions.

Louise Erdrich
(Chippewa)

“Dear John Wayne”

August and the drive-in picture is packed. We lounge on the hood of the Pontiac surrounded by the slow-burning spirals they sell at the window, to vanquish the hordes of mosquitoes. Nothing works. They break through the smoke screen for blood.

Always the lookout spots the Indian first, spread north to south, barring progress. The Sioux or some other Plains bunch in spectacular columns, ICBM missiles, feathers bristling in the meaningful sunset.

The drum breaks. There will be no parlance. Only the arrows whining, a death-cloud of nerves swarming down on the settlers who die beautifully, tumbling like dust weeds into the history that brought us all here together: this wide screen beneath the sign of the bear.

The sky fills, acres of blue squint and eye that the crowd cheers. His face moves over us, a thick cloud of vengeance, pitted like the land that was once flesh. Each rut, each scar makes a promise: It is not over, this fight, not as long as you resist.

Everything we see belongs to us.

A few laughing Indians fall over the hood slipping in the hot spilled butter. The eye sees a lot, John, but the heart is so blind. Death makes us owners of nothing.

He smiles, a horizon of teeth the credits reel over, and then the white fields again blowing in the true-to-life dark. The dark films over everything. We get into the car scratching our mosquito bites, speechless and small as people are when the movie is done. We are back in our skins.

How can we help but keep hearing his voice, the flip side of the sound track, still playing: Come on, boys, we got them where we want them, drunk, running. They'll give us what we want, what we need. Even his disease was the idea of taking everything. Those cells, burning, doubling, splitting out of their skins.

From: Louise Erdrich, Jacklight. New York: Holt, 1984.