Checklist: Revising for Content
A peer reviewer's checklist for revising an explication for content.
ENGLISH 11AP - Language and Literature
Checklist - Revising the Explication for Content (Staple this sheet to the reviewed paper.)
Reviewer
Objective: to convince your readers that your understanding of a work is valid and important and to lead them to share that understanding.
REVISING FOR CONTENT
- Does the introduction consider the title or the most noteworthy feature of the poem?
- Does the lead sentence identify both the poem and the poet?
- Does the first sentence of the introduction provide a full citation like the model on pp. 40-43 in Perrine’s Literature?
- Does the introduction lead up to the central purpose or theme of the poem (in turn, the thesis of your explication)?
- Do the body paragraphs consist of a series of logically arranged paragraphs that demonstrate your thesis?
- Does the first body paragraph discuss the logic and function of the structure of the poem? (What does each stanza contribute or offer? Why does each stanza appear in the place it appears?)
- Do the second, third, and fourth body paragraphs explain the meaning of each of the three stanzas of the poem in order?
- Does each body paragraph about a stanza include consideration and explanation of tone?
- Do the paragraphs need reorganization?
- Does each stanza receive at least one paragraph’s worth of explanation?
- Do they need amplification? (Have you said all that is necessary?)
- Do they include quoted material (words, phrases, figures of speech, and allusions) from the poem? Do they include explanations of how those words, phrases, figures of speech, and allusions contribute to and develop the meaning of the poem?
- Does the concluding paragraph sum up the supporting arguments and restates the thesis? Does the conclusion discuss the relationship between the speaker and the poet? (For example, is the speaker identical to the poet? Is the speaker distinct from the poet? From the poem (or other poems by the same poet), how can you tell?)
- Did you eliminate any words or phrases that express a less-than-assertive stance (“I think,” “I feel,” “in my opinion,” “might mean,” “could mean,” etc.
QUOTATIONS
- Did you make sure that you fully and accurately explained each word, phrase, line quoted?
- Did you avoid unnecessary use of long quotations. (The longer the quotation, the greater the amount of explanation required.)
SAMPLE LEAD SENTENCE:
The most noteworthy feature of John Donne’s “The Flea” (citation) is . . . .
ESSENTIAL STRUCTURE:
- Introduction that identifies poem and poet as well as most or first noteworthy feature, discusses that feature, and leads to the theme or purpose of the poem.
- Paragraph that identifies and comments on the structure of the poem.
- Paragraph that explains what the first stanza means and how it is made to mean that.
- Paragraph that explains what the second stanza means and how it is made to mean that.
- Paragraph that explains what the third stanza means and how it is made to mean that.
- Conclusion that comments on the relationship between the speaker and the poet.