?Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Poetry: Literal and Figurative Meaning (Summary) and Response ? Paper One
ENGL 1020 Online, Spring 2017
For this first essay, you will need to summarize and respond to Robert Frost?s ?Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.?

Read the poem, consider its meaning, and then consider your response. Next, compose an explanation of the literal and figurative meaning of the poem in the first part of your essay, as outlined below.

Literal Meaning

Using the ?Literal meaning in poetry? worksheet on D2L as a guide, write a paraphrase of the literal meaning you see in Frost?s poem, ?Stopping by Woods?? in such a way that you put the poem’s words in your own words, present the literal (not figurative or metaphorical or symbolic) meaning, end up with approximately the same number of words as in the original poem, and write in typical, standard English prose.

Figurative Meaning

Using the ?Figurative meaning in poetry? worksheet on D2L as a guide, write two 7+ sentence paragraphs which define and discuss thefigurative meaning you see in Frost?s poem in a way that your paragraphs sum up the central figurative idea of the poem, support that interpretation of the figurative idea of the poem with quotations from the poem to back up your ideas, use quotation marks and cite the quotation and, if necessary, use the forward slash between lines of poetry, and write in standard English prose. These paragraphs are notoffering your personal opinion to a friend but your analysis as an academic, so you should not use the word ?I? or informal phrasing in this section.

In your writing in the summary portion of your essay
? Provide the author and title of the poem, as demonstrated in the example below.
? Use quotations to support your ideas in the figurative meaning paragraph (quotation marks, citation of lines, forward slashes when needed).
Once you have offered an explanation of the literal and figurative meaning of the poem, discuss your personal reaction to the themes and ideas expressed in the text in a 7+ sentence, well-developed, thoughtful paragraph. Because this portion of the assignment is reader response writing, you can use ?I? in your discussion (only in this portion). Relate ?Stopping by Woods..? to your own life, experiences, beliefs, etc. How does the poet elicit these emotions or thoughts from his readers? What sections of the poem stand out to you and why?
Submission and final comments
Once you have concluded both the summary and response portions of your essay, you are finished. This first essay is not a traditional essay in that it does not require an introduction, conclusion, thesis statement, etc. Trust me; those are coming shortly. This assignment is designed to help us recognize the differences between literal (summary) and figurative (analysis) meaning and to begin to consider how a writer crafts words and phrases to elicit responses from his/her reader.

If you have followed directions, your submission should be at least two pages of double-spaced text. Remember to use Times New Roman, 12-point font with 1 inch margins and to include the header as described in the syllabus