Compare and contrast the poems and/or poets within this week's reading. You may compare poems by the same poet, or poems across more than one poet.

Compare and contrast the poems and/or poets within this week's reading. You may compare poems by the same poet, or poems across more than one poet. Have a debatable, persuasive claim and focus on specific points of comparison, using the Lesson in week 7 to guide your structure. Please consult the MLA handbook if you are in doubt about citation form.

Read: John Grisham: Somewhere for Everyone

Read: Sharon Olds, "First Thanksgiving"

Read: Sharon Olds, "Still Life in Landscape"

Read: Sharon Olds, "After Making Love in Winter"

Read: Sharon Olds, "The Planned Child"

Read: Linda Pastan, "A Rainy Country"

Read: Linda Pastan, "I Am Learning to Abandon the World"

Read: Linda Pastan, "The Obligation to Be Happy"

Read: Linda Pastan, "Why Are Your Poems So Dark?"

Read: Larry Levis, "SIgns"

Read: Larry Levis, "To a Wren on Calvary"

Read: Larry Levis, "Winter Stars"

Your essays should be in MLA Style and approximately 1625-1950 words, not including the Work(s) Cited page. Meeting the minimum word requirement makes you eligible for a C grade. Meeting the maximum word requirements makes you eligible for an A grade. As with most academic writing, this essay should be written in third person. Please avoid both first person (I, we, our, etc.) and second person (you, your).In the upper left-hand corner of the paper, place your name, the professor’s name, the course name, and the due date for the assignment on consecutive lines. Double space your information from your name onward, and don't forget a title. All papers should be in Times New Roman font with 12-point type with one-inch margins all the way around your paper. All paragraph indentations should be indented five spaces (use the tab key) from the left margin. All work is to be left justified. When quoting lines in literature, please research the proper way to cite short stories, plays, or poems.

Should you choose to use outside references for prompt one or two, these must be scholarly, peer-reviewed sources obtained via the APUS library (select Advanced Search and check the Peer Reviewed box). Reliable open web sources may be used for prompt three. Be careful that you don’t create a "cut and paste" paper of information from your various sources. Your ideas are to be new and freshly constructed. Also, take great care not to plagiarize.