Writing About Literature                      

ENG 111: Writing About Literature                                                                                                                                (Worth 200 points)                                                                                                                                            

Cultural Context Essay on Mark Doty’s “A Collection of Minerals”                                          

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Your assignment is to write an essay in which you explore the cultural context of either “A Collection of Minerals”by Mark Doty.

Your general prompt for this assignment is:What insights can information about the cultural context of “A Collection of Minerals” give readersinto the meaning of this poem?

You might wonder, then, “What’s the ‘cultural context’ of a poem?”

When you write about the cultural context of a poem, your essay explains to readers how the poem’s meaning connects to its particular time and place. Acknowledging that literary works do not exist in a vacuum, you might consider cultural context information such as the poet’s and/or speaker’s cultural or racial background as well as specific events that occurred at the time the poem depicts and/or was composed. You can also consider what insights about the poem readers might get from information about practices and situations that were characteristic of the time in which the poem was composed and/or was composed.

                When you write your paper, you examine the connections between the work’s cultural setting and the work itself, considering how particular situations and events influence the content of the poem. For example, a speaker’s particular attitude might connect meaningfully to a particular social/economic class, religious belief, or ethnic tradition. To show how the poem’s context can help readers understand its meaning, you will need to do some research—perhaps reading newspapers from the era in which the work is set, historical accounts, sociological descriptions of communities/cultures, diaries, letters as well as critical interpretations of the cultural period in in which you are focusing. You might even want to interview someone who lived through the events that influenced the work—for example, someone who lived through the Cold War era may provide important insights that could be used to place a poem set and/or composed during that time period in its cultural context.

                It usually makes sense to begin your paper with and overview of the poem’s background to help orient readers who are not familiar with that background. You will also explicate the poem, systematically exploring specific parallels between the cultural context and the poem.

               

Cultural Context Essay Specifications:

  • A TYPED hard copy of your Cultural Context Essay must be submitted no later than Sunday, November 8th (11:59pm) to Google Classroom. Essays submitted by email will not be graded, and essays (in either form) submitted after the due date/timewill not be graded and receive a zero (0)
  • Essays must adhere to MLA format. This means that essays must correctly use parenthetical documentation in the essay, e.g. (560) or (lines 12-13), and essays must contain a correctly rendered Works Cited page after the final page of the essay. Also, essays need to be double-spaced and have pages numbered.
  • The required word count for your Cultural Context Essay at least 1200 words,which can include the words on your Works Cited page. Essays of any length, below or above 1200 words, can be submitted, but those significantly shorter that 1200 will lose points from the Support score (80 total possible points). You are strongly urged to submit your essay by the due date regardless of how inferior you believe the essay to be.
  • Your Cultural Context Essay is required to utilize at least three (3) sources, and more than three is fine. One of these sources must be the poem itself, and at least two other sources. These other sources can be other poems by Doty, other poems or works by other authors, historical documents, diaries, scripture, news and magazine stories, song lyrics, interviews etc. (basically anything except the poem itself).
Category Description Points Possible Points Earned
Focus / Coherence Is the thesis clear? Introduction is carefully and fully realized? Individual points are related clearly to thesis? Specific points have clear, developed paragraphs? 80  
Support Evidence is properly introduced and formatted? Evidence supports claim? Relationship clear between claim and evidence? 80  
Sentence Skills Writing is clear? Essay is in MLA format? There is a minimum of usage, grammar, and mechanical errors? 40  
    Total possible: 200 pts. Total earned:

 

    Letter grade:

 

Essays earn scores out of a possib

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