LitMUSE

When reading poetry, particularly a new and difficult poem, you might need a bit of help accessing it. Consider the following questions as guides for beginning to understand poetry. Answers to these questions can be used as the basis of classroom or forum discussions.

What do you know about speaker of this poem?
Describe what is happening. [...]

As we head into midterm, I just wanted to give you some reminders before you’re off to spring break.
The drop date is this Wednesday, March 3. I would recommend speaking to me before dropping, especially if you’re unsure about your standing my the class.
I’d like to say a few words about my World Lit class’ [...]

Another aspect to consider when writing about literature is getting your quotations correct. When incorporating quotations from poems into your writing, you must keep the lines exactly as the poet has set them down. Remember, this is what a quotation is: an exact reproduction of the original writing. Take, for example, this quotation from Pope:
What [...]

I received 15 responses on Tartuffe via Turn It In. Congratulations for those of you who successfully figured out how to submit a response. If you still need assistance, please see me during my office hours. I had several students try to submit their responses as a comment on this web site or try to [...]

For my online literature classes and those classes that took the exam online, I have finished grading your submissions and grades will be posted shortly. I wanted to offer examples of how I evaluated each answer. Firstly, you were asked to write a paragraph response as your answer to each question. Some just answered the [...]

A sentence fragment occurs when one or more of the following is true:

there is no verb
there is no subject
the word group is part of a subordinate clause or phrase

A true sentence must contain at least one independent clause: a group of words with a subject and a verb that can stand alone. For example:
We shopped [...]

In writing a thesis statement, you should follow some general guidelines. Be sure your thesis contains an arguable position about the topic. To do this, you should avoid stating facts, asking questions, or using unsupportable language.
Facts are good for subjects, but make lousy thesis statements. If you cannot take a position about a topic, then [...]

The thesis statement, or simply “thesis,” is the heart of your essay. The thesis explicitly states the subject of your essay, discloses your assertion about the subject, suggests an organizing structure for your essay, and provides the scope of your essay. The thesis makes a promise to your reader: it clearly explains the purpose of [...]

An essay should never lose focus on its subject and assertion. Each part of the essay should keep a continual eye on the focus, both at a macro and micro level. Each body paragraph of an essay should be working to prove the overall focus of the essay while also striving to support and illustrate [...]

One of the most common errors in new college writers is how to use possessives correctly. One of the confusing elements here is that both plurals and possessives are usually signified by using an “s” at the end of a word. Most students get plurals correct:

books – more than one book (this is a standard [...]