Questions on Parenthetical Citations

If you continue to have questions after Mr. Stone's explanations on what to put in your parenthetical citations for your poet report, consult pp. 125-133 of your A Pocket Style Manual or read the following page of OWL.

More Drafting

Thursday 24 May 2018 for Periods 5 & 6 and Friday 25 May 2018 for Periods 1, 2 & 7

Students continued to draft their poet report using classroom laptop computers.

No homework due over Memorial Day Weekend.

From Note Cards to Paragraphs: Drafting Your Research Report

Wednesday 23 May 2018 for Periods 5 & 6 and Thursday 24 May 2018 for Periods 1, 2, & 7

Mr. Stone began class by reading excerpts from a box of forty poetry books he recently won in a silent auction from the A. K. Smiley library.

Students finished making paper flashcards to study the stages of the research process if they hadn't finished making them during the previous class period.

Mr. Stone read and discussed Ecclesiastes 3 and Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" if those works were not covered during the previous class period.

Mr. Stone then modeled how to incorporate researched material into the student's writing using the poet Anthony Hecht as an example:

According to Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, editor of The Poets Laureate Anthology, Anthony Hect's early poems sounded like song lyrics (344).  Hecht was a formalist poet when most poets were abandoning traditional metered forms for free verse (344).  The Poetry Foundation says, "Hecht is known for his masterful use of traditional forms and linguistic control" ("Anthony Hecht").  Hecht stayed a formalist throughout his career (Schmidt 344).

First, to move from note cards to a paragraph, begin by sorting your note cards by secondary keywords.  Place all the "life" cards in one pile, all the "works" in a second pile, all the "reputation" cards in a third pile, all the "represents"/"representative" cards in a fourth pile. (You might consider using additional rubber bands or paperclips to keep your cards separated by secondary keywords.

Second, spread out your stack of "life" note cards and organize them into subsets by tertiary keywords, e.g. born, family, school, work, etc.  Arrange the cards in the order you want to use them in the paragraph and then begin to write sentences.  You may write a sentence from one note card, or you may need to incorporate several cards to write a sentence.  Avoid making your sentences overly simplistic to the extent that you sound like a grade school student, while also avoiding making your sentence so complex or overloaded with information that they are not easily understood on a single reading.

MLA Parenthetical Citations
You will be using the Modern Language Association (MLA) style of in-text parenthetical citations.  In other words, you will be sharing where you found your information each time you use it use a pair of parentheses usually at the end of a sentence.  The parenthetical citations in the MLA style use an author-page system.  Your citations should ideally contain the author's last name and the page number so if one of your readers wants to look more at the source you used, they can go to your works cited list and find the full bibliographic information they need to locate where you found it.

If you are using an online source, your citations will not have page numbers because websites do not have fixed page numbers. If you are using a source that does not have a stated author, you will use the first key word of the works cited entry (often the title of the webpage you are using).  Remember to place the title of articles inside quotation marks and to italicize the title of a book or a website.

Introduce* a source the first time you use it.  Provide the full name of the author and a fact about them that will make your readers find them authoritative or respectable.  In the sample paragraph above, I used Elizabeth Hun Schmidt's full name (Don't worry if you don't have the author's middle name.) and the fact that she is the editor of The Poets Laureate Anthology to introduce her.  Because I used her name in the sentence I only needed to include the page number in the parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence.

After you introduce a source, let the source speak. State the facts the source provided as you have paraphrased or summarized them.  If you are using the exact words of your source, place them in quotation marks.

Be sure to cite when your use of a source's information ends.  This is often at the end of every sentence, but it may be that you use information from the same source and the same page over more than one sentence.  If so, then place the citation at the end of the sentence where your use of that source's information stops.  If you switch to a different source, be sure and make that clear.

Since you are reporting information in the majority of the paragraphs of this assignment, you will likely not include any personal comments, but if you were writing an argumentative paper, you would want to be sure to comment on how the information you used from a source (called evidence in an argumentative paper) supports the claim you were making.

In the sample paragraph above, the second sentence came from the same source as the first sentence, so I did not have to provide the author's name in the parenthetical citation, but I did include the page number even though it was the same as the first sentence to make it clear that I was still using Schmidt as a source.  In my third sentence, I switched to a different source so I stated its name.  Since the Poetry Foundation is a source well-known to the readers of our reports, we don't have to provide authoritative information about it.  Stating its name at the beginning of this sentence is making it clear to the readers that I have switched sources.  At the end of the third sentence, I used the first key words of the title of the Poetry Foundation's web page on Anthony Hecht, which logically for a biographical article is his name.  I did not include a page number in this citation because the source is a web source.  In the fourth sentence I returned to my use of Schmidt as a source.  Since I didn't use her name in the sentence, I included both her last name and the page number in my citation.

Third, once you have used all of your note cards for the "life" question to write sentences, look back over the paragraph you have written and see if it makes sense. Make corrections as needed. 

Is there any missing pieces of information your readers might need? If you have time, locate that information and add it.  If you don't have time, safe that for when you make revisions.

Does it meet the five-sentence minimum requirement for this assignment?  If it doesn't, you'll need to find more information and lengthen your paragraph.  Notice the sample above is too short.

Once you have drafted your life paragraph, draft your second paragraph on the major works of your poet.

Homework:  Draft the first two paragraphs of your poet report.  Your first paragraph is about the poet's life.  Your second paragraph is about the poet's major works.

*The primary terms I use to describe your approach to integrating source material are the language of my colleague Danelle Taylor Johnston.  I have used them here with her permission.

More Poetry

Tuesday 22 May 2018 for Periods 2, 5 & 6 and Wednesday 23 May 2018 for Periods 1 & 7

Students read and discussed Langston Hughes' "Harlem," Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 KJV, and Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing."

Periods 5, 6, 1 & 7 talked about using 3x5 cards to study the research process for the research portion of the upcoming exam over poetry and research.  Period 2 needs to ask Mr. Stone about these cards at the beginning of class on Thursday.

Homework:  Select which poem best represents your assigned poet.  This may be the poem you find most frequently selected to include by this poet in anthologies or websites, or it may be you find a critic specifically states a poem that is representative of your assigned poet's unique style and/or voice.  Re-examining the sources you have already consulted will likely give you a list a characteristics that are associated with your poet.

You secondary keyword for these notes is representative.  Here are some tertiary questions with key words underlined:

What is the title of the poem that best represents your poet?

How is the topic of this poem typical of your poet?

How is the style of this poem typical of your poet?

How is the form of this poem typical of your poet?

How is the diction/word choice of this poem typical of your poet?


Make sure you have located the full text of the poem to include in your paper.  Do NOT copy out your selected representative poem on a note card.

You will need to write a paragraph of at least five meaningful sentences about the poem you claim to be representative of your poet.  Take enough notes to make this possible.

Including tonight's notes you should have a minimum of 30 note cards.

Figurative Language, Imagery, and Sound in Poetry

Monday 21 May 2018 for Periods 1, 2, 5 & 6 and Tuesday 22 May 2018 for Period 7

Students continued to study elements of poetry by reading and analyzing Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Eagle" and William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."

In the process of the discussion, Mr. Stone defined internal rhyme, end rhyme, rhyme scheme, alliteration, assonance, personification, simile and metaphor.

Homework:  Study the four Quizlet sets Mr. Stone has added to the class account on poetry:  Poetry--Stanzas, Poetry--Types of Imagery, Poetry--Meter, Poetry--Misc Terms.

Spend at least twenty minutes studying these sets.  Will pick up on taking more notes for the poetry report tomorrow.

Dramatic Poems and Tertiary Questions on a Poet's Reputation

17 May 2018 for Periods 5 & 6 and 18 May 2018 for Periods 1, 2, & 7

In class, students read and discussed Edgar Lee Masters' "Lucinda Matlock," and two dramatic poems from Kjell Espmark's Lend Me Your Voice.  They also read and discussed the monologue of Jacques, "The Seven Ages of Man, from  Act II of William Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Homework:  Take ten more note cards on your assigned poet.  Students should have completed twenty-five cards in total by the first class period of next week using the three sources for which the students have already completed bibliography cards.  Students should begin taking notes on the third secondary question for this report:  What is the poet's reputation?

Students may take more notes on the poet's life and works.

Tertiary questions for the poet's reputation:

To which literary group or groups did the poet belong?

Which style is associated with the poet's writing?

What did critics say about the poet?

Which prizes did the poet win?

Which  honors did the poet receive? (e.g.  serving as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress or serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate)

Which books of the poet are still in print (available for sale new), if any?

Are the poet's poems  frequently represented in current anthologies or textbooks?

Is/was the poet noted for his/her speaking style?

Does the poet have other notoriety outside of their literary achievements, e.g as an activist, a musician, or an artist?

Where any of the poet's books considered "best sellers"?  Was the poet popular outside of academic circles?

Bibliography Cards & Taking Notes on Poet's Major Works

Wednesday16 May 2018 for Periods 5 & 6 and Thursday 17 May 2018 for Periods 1, 2, & 7

Students used their research style manual or Purdue University's OWL for requirements for MLA style bibliographic entries.

Mr. Stone worked through three bibliography cards with the students: 

one for an entry from Encyclopedia Britannica (an article/page on a web site or look at p. 159 of Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers' A Pocket Style Manual),

a second for The Poets Laureate Anthology (book or look at p. 151 of Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers' A Pocket Style Manual),

and one for an entry from the American Academy of Poets' Poets.org  (an article/page on a web site or look at p. 159 of Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers' A Pocket Style Manual).

Students read Edgar Lee Masters' "Lucinda Matlock" as an example of a dramatic poem.

Homework:  Complete ten note cards.  Begin on the secondary question:  what are the poet's major works,  and then take more notes on your assigned poet's life if you need or desire.

How to Take Notes on Major Works

Whether a work of literature is considered a major or minor work of an author is a sophisticated judgment made by literary scholars.  I am not asking you to determine if a work is major or minor yourself.  You can determine which works are generally considered major by which works are most frequently selected and mentioned in descriptions of the poet's writing.  You should collect notes on the works a poet has published. 

Keep track of your notes for different works by your assigned poet by the book’s title.  ( If a poet is known for particular short poems, find out the title of the first book in which they were published.)

Your note cards will have “works” as the secondary keyword and a specific book’s title for the tertiary keyword.

For example, if Donald Hall was your poet, you might have a note card from The Encyclopedia Britannica that had “works:  One Day” as the keyword heading.

Another note card from The Encyclopedia Britannica might say:

A third note card from The Encyclopedia Britannica might say:

For your notes on major works by the poet, you could include any of following information:

Date of publication

Complete title if longer than the title listed as the keyword of the card you are writing (Some books have a title and a subtitle.  The subtitle is usually written after a colon.  A complete title includes both the main title and the subtitle.)

Primary topic of the book (if there is one)

Form or style of the poems included in the book

Awards or prizes given to the work

Inspiration or reason for the work

Other general notes on works might include the number of books published and the types of works they have published (poetry, nonfiction prose, novels, children’s books, etc.)

Poet Research Report

Tuesday 15 May 2018 for Periods 2, 5 & 6 and Wednesday 16 May for Periods 1 & 7

Mr. Stone distributed a sheet on the six stages of the research process and discussed defining a research question.

Students will be researching the primary question:  Who is the poet __________________?

They will need to answer the following secondary questions:

What is the story of the poet's life?

What are this poet's major works?

What is this poet's reputation?

What poem best represents this poet?

What do you think of this poet? (my opinion)


In class, students filled in the first two rows of a graphic organizer ("the bubble sheet") with the primary and secondary questions.

To answer the first primary question (What is the story of this poet's life?), should answer many of the following tertiary level questions:

When and where was the poet born?

Which family members (if any) were influential on the poet?

Where did the poet go to school?

What did the poet do for work?

What were the poet's passions/hobbies/interests?

What significant challenges impacted the poet's life?

Where did the poet live?

Did the poet experience significant loss?

Did the poet have notable romances?

Does the poet identify him/herself with a particular cultural group?

When and where was the poet's death, or is he/she still living?

Homework:  Complete at least five note cards answering different tertiary level questions about the poet's life.