Eng

For this essay, you will be doing a critical analysis of any of the poems that we are reading for this class from Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez. The purpose of this literary analysis essay is to move beyond the surface level meaning of a text and to analyze its deeper meaning.

Learning Outcomes:

Students will be able to-

• move beyond summarizing

• assess or analyze what you read

• offer interpretations and judgments about what you read

• give evidence to support your evaluation

A Successful Essay:

* will properly introduce the poem(s) and author

* will provide a clear thesis that makes a claim about the poem(s) and use evidence to support that claim

* will thoroughly analyze a poem or theme across multiple poems

* will properly integrate evidence from the reading in MLA format

Topic Options:

Option 1: Analyze “what happens” in a poem or poems, the meaning of the sequence of events. Make sure that in writing this essay you go out on a limb—in other words, don’t stick to facts but go to the mysterious aspects of the text, the why, for example, and form an opinion that needs to be supported in your essay. Your thesis could state what happens and what the text suggests causes these events, for example, because the question of cause is often a debatable one. In this case your thesis would be a claim, a statement of opinion, about what happens and why. Remember to support your claims (thesis and sub-claims) with evidence, explanation and reasoning. Or you could write about how the events change poem’s speaker or what the events reveal about this speaker or what they are trying to do to the reader.

Option 2: Analyze an important symbol or motif (series of interlinked symbols), in one of the poems or across different poems. State what you think it symbolically represents and support this claim (thesis) with evidence, explanation and reasoning. For example: In the "Mexican Heaven" poems, heaven symbolizes____________. It needs to be clearly stated, almost as though it were an equation. Make sure that you use the descriptions from the poem(s) of the object, concept or image you are analyzing to support your claim about its meaning. Remember that the way we read certain objects, colors, figures, images as a culture is important, but even more important when you interpret literature is how the text itself creates associations surrounding the symbol. We recommend you run your idea by your professors, just to make sure you really have identified a symbol in the story.

Option 3: Analyze an important character in one of the poems or across poems. This could include the poems’ speaker, who is a stand-in for José Olivarez himself. What do the character's actions suggest about this character's motives? How do the events or the character's past contribute to the character's behavior? What is the basic point conveyed through or about the character in the poem(s) you chose? Sometimes the text attempts to reveal something about the reader (you) even more than it attempts to convey something about the characters. Is the poetry you chose doing that? If so, how is the description of the character attempting to reveal to you something about yourself?

Option 4: Analyze the relationship between form and content in one or more of the poems. Form refers to the structure or pattern in which the language of the poem is written. Some elements of form include rhythm, rhyme, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence and phrasing structure. Content refers to what the poem is “saying” or the ideas that it is expressing. Form and content can be looked at separately to a certain degree, but they are intertwined in pieces of literature. The form of a poem inevitably influences the expression of its content. If you see this relationship clearly at work in one or more poems, your thesis could state the main characteristics of that relationship and body paragraphs could explore with more details and textual evidence.

Option 5: Compare and contrast two poems using any of the elements listed in Options 1-4. Maybe two poems contain similar content but approach it differently. Perhaps the same symbol shows up in two different poems but with enough differences to support a compare/contrast thesis. Maybe the speaker’s voice or tone is both similar and different between two different poems. Maybe he uses similar form for two thematically different poems or vice versa.

A Checklist:

1. Make sure your final version is in MLA format including a Works Cited Page.

2. Make sure you use the word “speaker” or “Olivarez” to denote the person who is “telling” the poem. The voice in which the text is told does not necessarily represent the author themselves, but this collection of poetry is fully in the first person.

3. Give your essay an appropriate title. Do not underline or put quotation marks around this title, but do capitalize first letters of all important words: Ironies in an Hour. If you include the title of a poem in your title you do want to indicate that is a title by putting quotation marks around it: “My Parents Fold Like Luggage.”

4. Don’t say “I believe” or “I think” or “in my opinion” in your essay. In a literary analysis, readers will assume that you are giving your opinion, it is redundant to say these are your opinions.

5. The first time you mention it, formally introduce the poet’s whole name and the title of the text. Thereafter, refer to the author by his or her last name. Beginning: In José Olivarez’s “Ode to Cheese Fries,”… Later: Olivarez reveals his state of mind by….

6. State your thesis early (a common place is the end of the introduction, but the introduction can take more than one paragraph to form). Provide an introductory paragraph or more; body paragraphs wherein you make claims and provide evidence (quotes, paraphrases, facts), explanation and reasoning to support the thesis; and a conclusion.

7. Use the present tense to describe events in a poem unless you must distinguish the past from the present.

8. Do not ignore the ending of the poem, because that’s often where the meaning really takes shape. An analysis of what the ending finally does to the meaning of the poem as a whole is essential even if you analyze it only briefly.

9. Avoid summarizing the poem! You don't have to tell readers everything in the poem, so organize around supporting your thesis with specific evidence from anywhere in the poem. Start body paragraphs with claims such as "The speaker's behavior shows that he is avoiding claiming a specific home" or signal phrases that remind us you are about to introduce another piece of evidence. "More evidence that he is avoiding putting down roots can be found near the end of the poem, when he says…" If your body paragraphs begin with summary statements such as "First Olivarez moves into a new apartment," that's a sign you may be summarizing instead of organizing it as an essay.

Post the copy of your first draft of the literary analysis to this link as a word doc or pdf file. Try to have the intro and one body paragraph completed. 

You will complete this poem.

Boy & The Belt

the belt is an extension of dad & dad is an extension of god. the boy is an

extension of dad, too. the belt is just one thread tying them together. the boy

prays the belt stays wrapped around dad’s waist. the belt does not believe in

god, but if the belt did believe in anything, the belt would call it purpose. the

belt began as skin on a cow. its purpose was to protect & it failed. the boy

knows all about that. the boy has purpose too. dad & god & mostly he fails.

the belt’s new purpose is to hold—to contain dad’s expanding waist—except

when the boy fights, then the belt is born again as a classroom ruler with the

day’s lesson. maybe the belt & the boy can rebel. the boy tugs at the thread

that will bring dad & the belt. the boy won’t lie about his bruised brother or call

it anything noble. the boy fights because he is bigger. dad says he has no

choice. the belt says it has no choice. the boy understands he displeases god.

when the belt meets the boy, the belt kisses the boy & leaves purple lipstick.

dad understands this as an act of love. the belt doesn’t know about love. the

belt knows it completed its job. & the boy hears love.