Insenga
Essay One Assignment Sheet
Assigned: January 13
Complete draft due for In-Class Workshop: January 27
Final Essay One Packet Due: February 3
Conferencing Opportunities:
office hours or appointments from January 13 to February 1
Choose one option below.
Using the writing process discussed in class, compose an argumentative
essay that not only references but also analyzes textual evidence. Your
titled essay should be 3-4 pages long and must use correct MLA format and
documentation. It should include a Works
Cited page. Please keep all of your
work, from brainstorming to final drafting, as you must evidence and turn in
the entire writing process, from brainstorming to final draft.
1. In the introduction to
his book of poetry, The Wedge, modernist poet William Carlos Williams
claims that “A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words” and says that
“Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the
machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.” Referencing these ideas,
isolate one of Mora’s poems, identify some of the “parts,” or poetic elements,
that drive the “machine,” and then discuss how those parts work together to
create an interpretation that you identify.
2. Choose a central sign or image from one of Mora’s poems and
discuss its meaning in and out of context.
3. In Mora’s text, there
are three subsections entitled:
“Blooms,” “Thorns,” and “Roots.” For this option, consider two of the
poems we read from any one of these sections.
Argue how and why those poems are representative of the section’s
title. You’ll want to consider, then,
the concepts behind the subsection’s metaphoric title.