"Perfect Paragraph" Assignments

On the first day, I told everyone we would spend the year developing three crucial skills:

CRITICAL THINKING – Using Literary Criticism and making Real-World Connections to today
CLOSE READING – Finding specific examples in the text and analyzing diction/syntax
IMPACTFUL WRITING – Translating your ideas into clear, concise, and classy prose that

Since then, we have used the first few classes to explore a number of works using three literally theories, practicing closely reading and then critically thinking about literary works to develop original theses:

Psychoanalytic Lens (Internal Power Struggles)
-F451; “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”; Emily Dickinson’s “Much Madness,” “Wild Nights!,”; Whitman's "Learned Astronomer," Rilke's "The Grown Up," Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Feminist Lens (Power Struggle between Genders)
-A Streetcar Named Desire; Emily Dickinson's "It Was Not Death; Updike's "A&P", Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," The Crucible 

Post-Colonial Lens (Struggles of the DIsempowered)
-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing”/ Hughes’s “I Too Sing America”; Maya Angelou’s “Africa”;  Ursula K. Leguin LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”]

Now you will be writing an analysis of one of short story and one poem, bringing in the skill of Impactful Writing to add express the ideas we’ve developed through Critical Thinking and Close Reading. Each will be a single paragraph with two pieces of textual evidence. The short length of the assignment means that you will be able to edit these into Perfect Paragraphs, following the rubric I will distribute and using some of the techniques we discuss. For Homework (9/21-A, 22-B), write your draft of the POEM paragraph, using a certain lens throughout. 
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Download the Editing PowerPoint here