Exam #2: British Poets of World War I

Instead of taking the traditional sit-down-and-write-a-bunch-of-long-essays exam, I am offering an alternative this time around (you’ll get another one of those soon enough!).

PART I: Recitation (60 pts.)

For the first part of your exam (the easy part!), I want you to memorize all or part of a poem from our book, World War One British Poets. To qualify, the poem must be at least ten lines long. You can choose any ten lines, or more than ten lines, so long as you recite at least ten lines. We’ll sign up for times to do this in my office, and you don’t have to get it 100% perfect, but are allowed 3 mistakes. As long as you make no more than 3, you’ll get full points for this part of the exam. More than that, and you’ll lose points.

HINT: Try to pick a poem you have a connection to—that created an image or emotion in your mind, and that is easy for you to read and think about. Read it out loud as you try to memorize it and hear the sounds and rhythms. It will help you remember!

PART II: Analysis (40 pts.)

After you recite your poem in my office, I’ll give you a series of questions (you will pick ONE) to respond to using your poem. This is a “close reading” response, meaning that you analyze your poem to provide your answer to the question. What is “close reading”? Basically, it’s what we often do in class—examining how individual words, syntax, metaphors, and sounds contribute to ideas and themes in a poem.

For example, if writing about “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae, I might write:

“In the last stanza, the poet suddenly uses the word “ye” when he writes, “If we break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep” (12). This is important because “ye” is an archaic world, sounding Biblical or Shakespearean, which makes the reader hear this as an ancient law that cannot be broken, like one of the Ten Commandments. This makes the tone of the poem more serious and suggests that the soldiers have a heavy task before them; otherwise, the dead soldiers will never truly be laid to rest.”

NOTE: When writing about poetry, use slashes (/) to indicate line breaks, since this saves space in your paper (though you can transcribe them exactly as they appear, as long as you don’t do it simply to take up space!). Also, be sure to cite the page number the poem occurs on so I—or others—can find it.

DUE DATES: Recitation no later than Friday, April 7th; Analysis due a week later by April 14th.