Thought Papers (14% in total)

(There are seven Thought Papers worth 2% each)

General guidelines:

• Thought papers are certainly very simple and short assignments.
• They are two paragraphs long, and the length of the paper in total should be between a minimum of 100 words to a maximum of 150 words.
• To make certain your word count is correct (in MS Word) you can click on “Tools” and then click on “word count.
• Use the formatting guidelines established during class lectures.
• The assigned text will always be poems from Reading Literature and Writing Argument.

Prompt:

• I simply want your thoughts on the assigned reading, which might take the form of addressing one or more of the following:

1. How the setting helps you to interpret the poem.
2. Who the speaker is, and how that helps you to interpret the poem.
3. How the language and word choices help to establish the tone of the poem.

• The above list (1 through 3) is just an example of an approach to this assignment. If you have other thoughts then feel free to take a different approach.

Grading Criteria:

• The total number of words in your two paragraphs must be 100 to 150 words.
• Use a document header, as you should for all assignments.
• Use a two-part title separated by a colon, neither part of which should contain the name of the assignment, nor should it contain part or all of the name of the poem.
• The formatting guidelines on the syllabus/class lectures must be observed.
• The paper should be two paragraphs long.
• Writing must be free—or predominantly free—of typos, awkward/unclear phrasing, and sentence level errors.
• Do not use contractions.
• Do not use first person pronouns such as “I” “me” “my.”
• Do not use second person pronouns such as “you” “your” “yours.”
• Do not engage in personal stories, meaning stories of your own life experiences, or the experiences of friends, family, and so on.
• Do not begin sentences with conjunctions: but, and, or, nor, for, so, yet.
• Do not pose any questions in any assignments. This means, quite literally, not to use questions. Make statements instead.
• Do not quote the bible or make allusions to religion in any way.
• Avoid any form of direct address to the reader, such as "think about the fact that . . ."
• Avoid too casual of a prose style, such as sentences that begin with words like "well, sure, now, yes, no."
• Do not use the phrase “a lot,” which can usually be replaced with one of the following words: many, most, much.
• Because thought papers are so short, do not quote more than a very brief line or two, if anything at all, from of the poem.

Some Important Points:

• Remember that part of this course involves working toward higher level writing skills. To that end, your writing should sound less like a verbal conversation between friends, and more like an academic paper, which means it has a formal tone. Everyone should be attempting to make his or her prose sound more scholarly.
• Engage the Assignment Calendar section of the course syllabus for due dates and the poems over which you will write these papers.