-This assignment should be from 2-4 pages long, typed and double-spaced.

Each student will write a response to any work or works studied this term (except for Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare in Love, or Li Po). This is a free-ranging, interpretive assignment, worth 20% of your mark: unlike with the essay summaries, the professor is particularly interested in your personal views of the subject. Think of it as a conversation between yourself and the work you’re writing about.

the poem you will be writing about is (Sonny’s Blues) the poem is attached below

Getting Started: Ask Important Questions

If you’re having a problem getting started, start by asking some basic questions about the work you’re writing about:

1. Why was I interested in this work? Was I emotionally moved by the work? Why and how?

2. What is the theme of the work, and why is it important? Did I learn something from the work? Did it make me think about the world in a different way? Are there ideas I agree with or disagree with in the work?

3. Was the work formally challenging? Did it use language in an interesting way?

Was it beautiful? Would I read it again?

Technical Considerations:

-To help yourself with the writing, make an outline of your main points. Give your response a clear beginning, middle and end. You don’t have to answer every question asked above.

– This paper should be partly about yourself, but keep the work always “in sight”; keep returning to it and quoting it to underscore its relevance to your own experience. Support abstract ideas with textual evidence. In other words, think of the assignment as a conversation between you and the work of literature.

-Do NOT summarize the content of the work; i.e. assume that Professor knows and has read the work you are writing.

Below i will attach an example to show you what the professor is expecting to receive