American Literature 201August 23

Michael SimpsonSection 051

“A poem should not meanBut be.”

“Ars Poetica” Archibald MacLeish

Class Summary

George Orwell’s Rules

Principles of Composition

Summary Research Paper

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (6 – 7)

George Orwell’s Rules

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Principles of Composition

Choose a suitable design and hold to it.

Make the paragraph the unit of composition

Use the active voice

Put statements in positive form

Use definite, specific, concrete language

Omit needless words

Principles of Composition

Avoid a succession of loose sentences

Express coordinate ideas in similar form

Keep related words together

In summaries, keep to one tense

Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.

Summary Research Paper

5 sources2 = paper

3 = internet

Works Cited page in MLA Format

Summary of the research Individual sources

Possible thesis

Details of Research Summary

Details of Research Summary

Details of Research Summary

Details of Research Summary

Details of Research Summary

Details of Research Summary

Purdue Online Writing Lab

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (6 - 7)

What others sayPoets.org – “A Close Reading of . . .”

Sparknotes.com – “Summary and Form”

Micklestreet.rutgers.edu – “Online Critical Edition”

Reading (experiencing) the poemyourself

Last QuestionsRemember for August 25

Read William Bradford (IV – XXXVI)

Deadline for 2nd blog

It is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson *

* Sante, Luc. “The Fiction of Memory” The New York Times. March 14, 2010.