Review Emerson, Thoreau, Steinbeck, And/Or Dillard

Name ______

Here is your chance to be creative (finally!) and show how you make meaning from our study of transcendentalism.

The assignment:  Review Emerson, Thoreau, Steinbeck, and/or Dillard.  Choose a theme that is meaningful to you, one that you can find in all three or four works. (These themes can be the same or in opposition.)  Choose passages and/or lines that share this theme through language, images, symbols, etc.  Rewrite those passages in poetry form. The form is up to you. Play around with spacing, parallel structure, repetition, word placement, the look and feel of words.  Feel free to play around with font in order to reflect your meaning, but you don’t have to and you don’t want crazy font to act as a distraction.  You may leave words out, but you may not add any words to the poem.  You may change punctuation as it suits your needs, but not capitalization.  You must in some way cite the sources. This can be tricky and there are many ways to do this. We need individual page numbers, chapters, and authors. Consider just a separate page of references. You do not want the citations to interfere with the poem’s meaning or distract the reader. Many students print two pages that are just the poem and another page that is the poem either color coded or referenced as to the source in some other way.  Include, on a separate page, a detailed paragraph describing your intent. What is your theme? What are you trying to show with this poem? What is your purpose? How does it relate to transcendental ideas as reviewed in class.  No need for pictures. Let the words of the masters do the talking.  This need not be long. One page is enough to pack a lot of meaning. Make every word count.  Print the following: 1. Two clean copies of the poem 2. A copy of the poem with the references 3. A paragraph describing your intent

Evaluation of Found Poetry Assignment: (20) Content How well the separate passages/lines/words flow together to create one poem. Consistency of theme, images, symbols, etc. Evidence of deeper meaning in the words of the poem.

(20) Organization Arrangement of words, phrases, and sentences to add meaning to the poem. Consistency in form among the works chosen. Poem presented in format that supports the meaning.

(20) Style/Creativity Evidence of your own style despite using the words of others. How the poem looks and sounds. Your own personal touch using the words of others.

(20) Conventions No spelling errors or misquotations. Punctuation, except for obvious need for apostrophes as possessives, is not necessary but may be helpful in clarifying meaning.

(20) Paragraph of A complete explanation of intent, purpose, ideas, etc. This is Explanation your attempt to analyze your own work, although meaning may exist beyond your own thoughts.

(50) Total