LITERATURE

Below are some things to think about as you write your own piece. Remember, you're writing an ARGUMENT, so don't spend too much time merely summarizing the poem/song of your choice.

1. Make sure your thesis is in the form of an argument. Your thesis should be the LAST sentence of your first paragraph. It would be good to introduce your essay with the name of the song/poem you're writing about the name of the artist/poet and some brief background on both before you come to the thesis idea.

Thesis statement from the sample essay:

"These opposing voices—of a tenant, a landlord, the police,

and the press—dramatize a black man’s experience in a society

dominated by whites."

2. Make sure that each paragraph has a good and clear topic sentence that it lets the reader know what aspect of the argument you're making in that paragraph.

3. Use actual lines from the poem/song to make your point using proper MLA formatting rules. Below is the first body paragraph from the sample essay. Note the topic sentence, the lines from the poem, and the argument points being discussed:

The main voice in the poem is that of the tenant, who, as

the last line tells us, is black. The tenant is characterized by his

informal, nonstandard speech. He uses slang (“Ten Bucks”),

contracted words (’member, more’n), and nonstandard grammar

(“These steps is broken down”). This colloquial English suggests

the tenant’s separation from the world of convention, represented

by the formal voices of the police and the press, which appear later

in the poem.