Rubric for Grading Essays

Any time I assign an essay, you can earn up to 13 points + twice (2 times) the number of paragraphs in the essay. Thus, a three-paragraph essay can earn up to 19 points and a five-paragraph essay can earn up to 23.

You will receive one (1) point for each paragraph you complete. For example, if I ask for a three paragraph essay, simply writing three paragraphs will earn you three points. You will receive another (1) point if you have at most one error in spelling, grammar, or punctuation in each paragraph. If a paragraph needs significant work (in terms of length, cohesiveness, structure, or in any other way), you will still receive one-half (0.5; ½) point for the paragraph.

If your poem is typed neatly, you will receive one (1) point.

You can earn up to four (4) points for your ideas, on the following scale:
1 -- Ideas are unconnected or irrelevant to the question.
2 -- Ideas are basic. If you were writing in reaction to a given text, an essay at this point in the scale restricts itself to those ideas explicitly stated in that text.
3 -- Ideas show some insight and thought. An essay at this point in the scale may not develop its ideas fully or may miss some important points and connections, but it nonetheless shows that the student has considered the question.
4 -- Ideas are deeply insightful and thoughtful. An essay at this point in the scale reflects deep thought on the part of its writer. Its ideas are fully developed and all important points and connections are considered.

You can earn up to four (4) points for how well you support your ideas, on the following scale:
1 -- Ideas are merely stated, with no attempt made to prove their validity. Alternately, the support provided is irrelevant and ineffectual. Argument against the essay's ideas is impossible.
2 -- Support for the essay's ideas is present, but is basic and simple. Much of the work of proving the validity of the essay's ideas is left to the reader. Argument against the essay's ideas is easy.
3 -- Support for the essay's ideas is thorough, but still weak. The reader still has to make some conceptual leaps. Argument against the essay's ideas is possible and presents some difficulties, but there are still holes in the essay's arguments to exploit.
4 -- Support of the essay's ideas is thorough and full. The writer's thought process is laid out in its entirety for the reader. Argument against the poem's ideas requires a long conversation and is likely to help both parties create new knowledge during its course.

You can earn up to two (2) points for how strong the voice in your essay is, on the following scale (one-half (0.5; ½) point for each level):
½ -- The essay has no personality; it sounds like an encyclopedia article, with just the facts. The writer seems to have no feelings about the topic, and there is no connection between the reader and the writer.
1 -- There are occasional moments of personality, feeling, and connection in the essay, but, for the most part, the language is general and impersonal.
1½ -- Though the essay reveals how the writer feels about the topic, that feeling is restricted to only one emotion. The connection between the reader and the writer suffers due to this flatness and/or due to occasional impersonal language
2 -- The writer has obviously written the essay to be read, not just as an assignment. The writer cares about the topic and shares a wide range of feelings about the topic. There is a strong connection between the reader and the writer.

You can earn up to two (2) points for how well organized your essay is, on the following scale (one-half (0.5; ½) point for each level):
½ -- The essay shows no clear sense of direction, with no connections drawn between the ideas. The introduction and conclusion (whether those are a sentence or a paragraph) cannot be identified. The essay seems to be a list of ideas with no transitions.
1 -- The essay has a clear introduction and conclusion, but is otherwise disorganized. Transitions are noneffective or are always achieved with the same word. The ideas are presented in some semblance of order, but it is ineffective and adds nothing to the reader's understanding of the essay.
½ -- The essay is clearly and effectively organized, with a strong introduction and conclusion, but the transitions are ineffectual or repetitive. The sequencing of the ideas is acceptable, but causes some confusion in the reader. Alternatively, the organization of the essay is generally of the highest level, but it is missing an introduction or conclusion.
2 -- The essay makes sense and is easy – even a joy – to follow. The introduction and conclusion are effective and likely very identifiable; a variety of transitions seamlessly connect all the ideas. The sequencing of ideas and details make sense and help the writer understand the essay. The conclusion of the essay brings the essay to a definite close.

Questions for "Success is counted Sweetest"

1. According to the speaker, who is likely to count success as sweetest? Do you think the poet is accurate in describing the feelings of people who fail?
2. Purple is a color associated with blood shed in battle (the Purple Heart medal is given to soldiers wounded or killed in action). It is also a color associated with royalty and nobility. What do you think is the “purple Host” in line 5?
3. Whose ear is mentioned in line 10? Why is the ear “forbidden”?
4. Describe the image you see in the last stanza. How could this image be extended to refer to other situations in life? Explain.
5. Have you ever been like the soldier in the last stanza – in agony because someone else is proclaimed the winner? What other circumstances in life (other than a wartime battle) could this situation be applied to? (Could it describe the feelings of a poet who could not publish her work?)

"Success is counted Sweetest", by Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of Victory

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

Questions for "Medusa"

1. The poem opens with a surprising statement. Who is speaking? What is ironic about what she is saying?
2. Medusa is both a victim of metamorphosis and one of its greatest agents. What do you think is the tone of line 6 – “I too was human”? How does Medusa feel about her own metamorphosis?
3. Humans dread Medusa, yet Medusa herself dreads something. According to lines 11-14, what does she dread, and why?
4. Lines 15-27 delve deeply into Medusa's character. What does Medusa threaten to do? What is her motivation – the reason for her plans?
5. In the final stanza, what is about to happen, unknown to Medusa?
6. How does the poet's use of the first-person point of view affect your feelings about Medusa?

"Medusa", by Agha Shahid Ali

"I must be beautiful,
Or why would men be speechless
at my sight? I have populated the countryside
with animals of stone
and put nations painlessly to sleep.

I too was human. I who now live here
at the end of the world
with two aging sisters, spinsters
massaging poisons into our scalps
and sunning our ruffled snakes,

and dreading the night, when
under the warm stars
we recall men we have loved,
their gestures forever refusing us.

Then why let anything remain
when whatever we loved
turned instantly to stone?
I am waiting for the Mediterranean
to see me: It will petrify.
And as caravans from Africa begin to cross it,
I will freeze their cargo of slaves.

Soon, soon, the sky will have eyes:
I will fossilize its dome into cracked blue,
I who am about to come
into God's full view
from the wrong side of the mirror
into which He gazes.”

And so she dreams
till the sun-crimsoned shield
blinds her into nightmare:
her locks, falling from their roots,
crawl into rocks to die.
Perseus holds the sword above her neck.
Restless in her sleep, she,
for the last time, brushes back
the hissing curls from her forehead.

Questions for the William Carlos Williams poems

1. Think about what Williams has in mind when he says, “so much depends upon a red wheel barrow.” What might he be saying about poetry or art? Do you agree with him?
2. In “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Williams focuses on an ordinary workday object. Are the subjects of “The Great Figure” and “This Is Just to Say” eqully ordinary? Explain.
3. The painter Charles Henry Demuth (1883-1935) was so struck by the dynamic imagery in “The Great Figure” that he painted The Figure 5 In Gold (which I will post, if need be). What movement do you see in the painting? What do you hear in the poem itself?
4. What one word is used metaphorically to describe the fire truck as if it were a person?
5. How would the feeling of “The Great Figure” change if the colors were different? Try it and see.
6. Which one of the five senses does the imagery in “This Is Just to Say” primarily appeal to?
7. Whom do you think the speaker of “This Is Just to Say” is addressing? What response do you imagine he or she will receive and why?
   

"The Red Wheelbarrow", by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

"This Is Just to Say", by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

"The Great Figure", by William Carlos Williams

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

Question for three paragraph essay

Do you think writing a poem is an effective way to “bear witness to historical events”? Explain.

Questions for "The Memory of Elena"

1. Who is speaking in the poem? Whose story is the narrator telling?
2. Write a sentence or two summing up what happens in each stanza.
3. The visual imagery of the poem is deliberately shocking. Which images do you see most clearly? How do they link past and present events?
4. Find three images of sound in the poem and three instances of silence. Why does the speaker emphasize silence?
5. What details of Elena's identity and her experiences in Buenos Aires are spelled out in Bill Moyers's interview with Forche? (the interview is a little long for me to post, but if it is necessary, I will) Do you need to know these details in order to understand the poem? Would you have preferred the poem to include all the details Forche gives in the interview? Why or why not?

Questions for "Plenos poderes"/"Full Powers"

1. In the first stanza, why might the night inhibit the speaker from writing?
2. What could the “keys” in line 8 unlock for the speaker? What do you think he means by “night” and “darkness in the second stanza?
3. In line 14, what does the speaker mean by “I am weary neither of being nor of non-being”? Explain.
4. What could the speaker mean by his “debts to minerality” (line 17)?
5. Why does the speaker “keep on going,” according to lines 19-20?
6. Why might the poem be titled “Full Powers”? What is the source of the speaker's creative powers?

"The Memory of Elena" by Carolyn Forche

We spend our morning
in the flower stalls counting
the dark tongues of bells
that hang from ropes waiting
for the silence of an hour.
We find a table, ask for paella,
cold soup and wine, where a calm
light trembles years behind us.

In Buenos Aires only three
years ago, it was the last time his hand
slipped into her dress, with pearls
cooling her throat and bells like
these, chipping at the night—

As she talks, the hollow
clopping of a horse, the sound
of bones touched together.
The paella comes, a bed of rice
and camarones, fingers and shells,
the lips of those whose lips
have been removed, mussels
the soft blue of a leg socket.

This is not paella, this is what
has become of those who remained
in Buenos Aires. This is the ring
of a rifle report on the stones,
her hand over her mouth,
her husband falling against her.

These are the flowers we bought
this morning, the dahlias tossed
on his grave and bells
waiting with their tongues cut out
for this particular silence.

"Full Powers" by Pablo Neruda, translated by Ben Belitt and Alastair Reid

I write in the clear sun, in the teeming street,
at full sea-tide, in a place where I can sing;
only the wayward night inhibits me,
but, interrupted by it, I recover space,
I gather shadows to last me a long time.

The black crop of the night is growing
while my eyes meanwhile take measure of the meadows.
So, from one sun to the next, I forge the keys.
In the darkness, I look for the locks
and keep on opening broken doors to the sea,
for it to fill the wardrobes with its foam.

And I do not weary of going and returning.
Death, in its stone aspect, does not halt me.
I am weary neither of being nor of non-being.

Sometimes I puzzle over origins –
was it from my father, my mother, or the mountains
that I inherited debts to minerality,
the fine threads spreading from a sea on fire?
And I know that I keep on going for the going's sake,
and I sing because I sing and because I sing.

There is no way of explaining what does happen
when I close my eyes and waver
as between two lost channels under water.
One lifts me in its branches toward my dying,
and the other sings in order that I may sing.

And so I am made up of a non-being,
and, as the sea goes battering at a reef
in wave on wave of salty white-tops
and drags back stones in its retreating wash,
so what there is in death surrounding me
opens in me a window out to living,
and, in the spasm of being, I go on sleeping.
In the full light of day, I walk in the shade.

"Plenos poderes" by Pablo Neruda

plenos poderes

a PURO SOL escribo, a plena calle,
a pleno mar, en donde puedo canto,
sólo la noche errante me detiene
pero en su interrupción recojo espacio,
recojo sombra para mucho tiempo.

el trigo negro de la noche crece
mientras mis ojos miden la pradera
y así de sol a sol hago las llaves:
busco en la oscuridad las cerraduras
y voy abriendo al mar las puertas rotas
hasta llenar armarios con espuma.

y no me canso de ir y de volver,
no me para la muerte con su piedra,
no me canso de ser y de no ser.

a veces me pregunto si de dónde,
si de padre o de madre o cordillera
heredé los deberes minerales,
los hilos de un océano encendido
y sé que sigo y sigo porque sigo
y canto porque canto y porque canto.

no tiene explicación lo que acontece
cuando cierro los ojos y circulo
como entre dos canales submarinos,
uno a morir me lleva en su ramaje
y el otro canta para que yo cante.

así pues de no ser estoy compuesto
y como el mar asalta el arrecife
con cápsulas saladas de blancura
y retrata la piedra con la ola,
así lo que en la muerte me rodea
abre en mí la ventana de la vida
y en pleno paroxismo estoy durmiendo.
a plena luz camino por la sombra.

RUBRIC FOR LITERARY RESPONSE AND ANALYSIS QUESTIONS

Each literary response and analysis question is worth two (2) points. In order to get full credit, you must fulfill two (2) separate criteria, each worth one (1) point: interpretation and evidence/support. Luckily, each of these criteria can provide either one-half (0.5; ½) or one (1) full point.

INTERPRETATION
One-half (0.5; ½) point can be earned if you provide an interpretation that is at least loosely connected to the piece in question. No special insight is necessary for this half-point, merely relevance and/or appropriateness.One (1) point can be earned if you provide an interpretation that is particularly insightful, interesting, or exciting. My focus on awarding this point is that you think new thoughts, either new to me or (so far as I can tell) new to you.

EVIDENCE
One-half (0.5; ½) point can be earned if you support your interpretation with even a slight reference to the rest of the piece. This can be as little as a single reference which nevertheless supports your point. Note that last clause: your evidence MUST support your interpretation in order for you to receive points for it. Note also that, if the question being asked references a particular line, set of lines, or phrase, your evidence may include evidence from that portion of the piece, but that you earn points by supporting your piece with evidence from elsewhere in the piece.One (1) full point can be earned if you support your interpretation strongly, with multiple references from the piece, probably including a consideration of the use of figurative language and poetic devices in the piece. If I cannot immediately dismiss your interpretation with a few well-placed comments – or if arguing your interpretation would involve a lengthy and probably quite fun conversation – then you have earned the full (1) point for evidence.

AN UNFORTUNATE CONSIDERATION
Unfortunately, these two criteria are not actually independent. Occasionally, one criterion's score depends upon the other. For example, if your interpretation is new enough, complex enough, or thoughtful enough, but your provide no support or evidence for it, I may not recognize it as being relevant or appropriate enough to earn the half-point (0.5; ½) for interpretation, let alone the full (1) point! Accordingly, if you revise your answers to provide sufficient support for me to understand just how insightful your answer actually is, then you just might raise a score of 0 or ½ all the way up to 2!

REVISING
As you hopefully recall, I accept revised work. Should you be unhappy with your score, you can turn in a revision stapled to your original work within a week of receiving your original work from me. I will then check to see if you deserve a higher grade and give you that new grade. There will be no reduction to your maximum possible score, and you can revise as many times as you please. Thus, everyone in this class can receive a 100% on every literary response and analysis assignment throughout the entire class. It also means that the score you receive is, in the end, entirely your choice and your decision. Use this power well.