The Story of My Paper

While in the process of finding a text for writing our final paper, I searched for one where I could present a good claim.  I generally looked at material that was new to me. 

 

 It helped so much when I posted “Coming Up With a CompellingThesis” using the guide from Dr. Burton. After coming up with nothing much except anxiety, I took his suggestion and looked to my posts for a familiar text.  That is when I decided to write about Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” because I enjoy his style of poetry.  I had done my reflective post on his poem, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and concluded I could come up with a stronger argument with “ The Road Not Taken.”

The Road To My Paper

I posted my five different types of claims and asked for feedback from the class, family members and neighbors, who graciously responded.  It generated some good social interaction with comments from Kimara, Charly, and Dr. Burton who challenged me to come up with a different analysis perspective of the poem.  Family members and a neighbor gave me some great comments through emails.  I displayed the comments in my “On The Road to a Thesis Paper” post, and thanked them for their helpful comments.  I let them know I would combine my evaluation claim and the cause/effect claim to come up with a stronger claim. 

The Final Outcome of my Learning Outcomes

Since April 30, Dr. Burton has stressed the importance of the five Learning Outcomes we should incorporate into our work. We were to start blogging immediately about our learning outcomes.  For me, just trying to figure out how to blog was a huge obstacle.  With the help of my husband, who also had never blogged, I was able to get two very pathetic blog posts “posted.”  When I learned how to insert a picture into my post, I felt I had something to work around.  Most important, I actually had fun writing my analysis for the short fiction stories we read.  For the first time I can remember, I could write what I thought about something and it counted.  Not having English as either a major or minor in my education, I set about with the first learning outcome with a vengeance.  As my Mid-term Blogpost attests, there were other outcomes that I neglected.  After meeting with Dr. Burton, he suggested that I focus more on outcomes #2 (literary genres) and #3 (write literary arguments).  Since the Mid-term I have. . .  

Blessed Literature

This process of sharing our thesis socially has been interesting.  I shared my five different thesis claims with my neighbor and was happy with the great comments he provided.  When I included him in the next step, he mentioned that Robert Frost’s poem, "The Road Not Taken" had kept him up at night.  Not intending for him to lose sleep over my homework, I was hoping he and his wife still liked me.   

I was pleasantly surprised on Sunday morning in our Gospel Doctrine class when my neighbor who is the instructor, passed a copy of Frost’s poem to each class member to read and analyze in the context of our pre-mortal and earthly life.   

Robert Frost in Church

He was able to incorporate the metaphor of choosing a path into our lesson very effectively.  In fact, one woman raised her hand to tell him that he had taught a really great lesson, which made him feel good.   I was pleased as well.  I was happy he shared the poem I am writing about with our Ward members. 

 

Maybe Dr. Burton is right that what we find interesting and good in literature we should share with others who will most likely be grateful for the enrichment.

Been on this Road Awhile

Working so closely with Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken the past weeks, I have decided to memorize it for one of my personal learning outcomes (#4).  

This way I will be able to share it with family and friends while providing some information and analysis I have been working on. 

It Happened on the Road

Getting my  thesis draft to this point has been challenging.  

At the same time I have had questions answered about the text I decided to write on.  Researching BYU's library provided some sound analysis to help me fulfill my claim about Frost's ability to make us think one way while  he moves us on in a different direction.  

This is only a draft.  I still have much to do.  I appreciate and invite your comments to help guide me along this road.

Frost’s Style of Poetry

It has been debated which poetry sub-genre Robert Frost identifies with.  The Oxford English Dictionary gives us examples that illustrate how Frost is a blend of at least three sub-genres of poetry.  Having been compared to Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, who said in 1800, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility.”   And Keats who in 1817 stated: “The poetry of earth is never dead…a voice will run… about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshoppers.”  Frost is said to have been influenced by Emily Dickenson, who crafted her poetry with a tool box of poetic devices according to BYU’s Emily Dickinson Lexicon.

 

Frost was influenced by whom?

Frost is also thought to have leaned towards transcendentalism, which means to pass over or go beyond (a physical obstacle or limit); to climb or get over the top (of a wall, mountain).  The religio-philoshical teaching of the New England school of thought represented by Emerson and others that exalted character, thought, or language; also that which is extravagant, vague, or visionary in philosophy or language; idealism. 

In 1842 Emerson said: “What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is idealism.”

Modernism has been noted as stylistic of Frost’s poetry.  This is the tendency or movement toward modifying traditional beliefs and doctrines in accordance with modern ideas and scholarship.  A usage, mode of expression, peculiarity of style, etc., characteristic of modern times.  Later more generally, an innovative or distinctively modern feature.

It could be that Frost was influenced by all three sub-genres of poets to bring us his memorable poetry.  Knowing this information will help me understand more about Frost's style of writing and the tools he used to help when I write my thesis paper.

Searching the Harold B. Lee Library

 

Watching Dr. Burton maneuver through BYU Library’s web site, I just knew it would be interesting and help me find some information for my thesis paper.  What I did not know is how long it was going to take me to find any information at all.  I spent hours trying to find something  about “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.                                  
I   f  i  n  a  l  l  y  was successful in finding Poetry Criticism by Ed. Michelle Lee. Bol. 71. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006. 

BYU Library

I think I found what I had been searching for—an explanation for how Frost was able to craft his poem so as to create personal reactions in readers that caused them to interpret the poem in their own way. 


I also found Emily Dickinsons Lexicon that had Noah Webster's 1844 American Dictionary of the English Language (ADEL) that is right from BYU.  I found much of the site difficult to manage, and it took a long time.  I'm sure it has everything to do with my computer skills.

The main thing is that I was successful in finding help with what I was searching for and I emailed the site to myself, so I can access it easier.  I have been reading it to see how I can use the information to help me prove the thesis in my paper.

BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library is an amazing resource for all who are privileged enough to have access to it.  I just need to get better at using it on line.

“Religion On Steroids"

As part of my personal learning to fulfill # 2 (non-fiction genre) and #3(write informally about my reading) outcomes, I read an article in BYU Studies Vol. 49, No. 2, 2010, by Thomas B. Griffith entitled Mere Mormonism.  This is an adaptation of C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and his classic exposition of the fundamentals of the Christian faith.  Humbly claiming to lack the skill to pull off such a fete, Griffith succeeded in identifying what is at the heart of the Mormon experience in an attempt to provide an introduction to the faith. 

I especially found his take on our relationship to others intriguing, as he begins this section with:  “For a people who believe that God is near and that he is not silent, Latter-day Saints place surprisingly little emphasis on the contemplative life.  Our primary focus, instead, is on relationships with other people.”  Claiming that LDS members like people and building communities is what they do best.”  Griffith uses the beehive as the closest thing LDS have as an icon.  He says, “Mormon life is profoundly social, and activity in the Church involves us deeply in the lives of others because in Mormonism God is served best—and perhaps only—by serving others.”  “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

Griffith tells how Sunday is hardly a day of rest for committed Mormons.  Beyond the three hour service, Sunday is filled with activities that begin with early morning planning meetings for those with leadership responsibilities and includes choir practices, training meetings, visits to each other’s homes, and evening activities for the youth—and that is only the first day of the week! 

A Marriage Proposal

For my personal learning outcomes, I just read A Marriage Proposal, by Anton Chekhov, a one-act farce that was first performed in 1890.  It was a light and humorous play about a man, Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov, who goes to see his neighbor to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.  The father, Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov, is at first very delighted that Lomov wants to marry his daughter and calls her in and leaves them together.  Natalia, the daughter and Lomov immediately get into an argument about a piece of land they both claim to own and he becomes ill and is sent away.  When Natalia hears that he had come to propose they have him come back only to start arguing again.  

The cycle of coming together and arguing happens again but the play ends with the three breaking out some champagne.  
Chekhov demonstrates how absurd and even silly it is for a man and a woman to display their stubbornness, pride and self-love.  
 
This is fast, humorous and a little exaggerated and all you can say is 

"and this is just the proposal?"

A Leading Path of Quotations

As I curate a set of quotations from Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” there are three familiar quotations that when read in sequence, begin In medias res and take readers down a thought-provoking path of plot.

Frost begins the poem with “Two roads diverged” to immediately seize our attention and create enough suspense to inspire further reading.  We wonder what two roads he is speaking of  and where each road will lead.  We can see the traveler (protagonist) must make a decision and we wonder how he will handle that situation.  

So Why Do I Care?

 

What has persuaded me to believe it actually matters that I write a paper about the effects of Frost’s poem, "The Road Not Taken?"  Since I first heard this poem long ago, it has given me greater appreciation for caring about the choices I make in my life. 

Ambiguous and Contrary Road

A casual reading has the effect to inspire readers to take the “road less traveled” which has generally been interpreted as the more difficult road.  Frost supports the traveler’s decision with a seemingly positive outcome by telling us that his choice has made all the difference.   Even though we have no idea what that difference might be, we are left to believe we will somehow benefit from taking the less traveled road. 

A closer reading reveals some contradictions that somehow lie dormant until we take time to analyze the effects of Frost’s inconsistencies.  I am intrigued enough to want to try to determine what message Frost is sending to readers that at first seems so clear but then turns out obscure.  It just might be that it is the contradictions and ambiguity of the poem that makes it so well loved by many people. 

This is the reason I am analyzing and writing a paper on the poem.

Identifying Dimensions of the Road

As I build my thesis from a combination of my evaluation and the cause/effect claims, along with the comments from scholarly friends, I will explore the effects of the contradictions and ambiguity in Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken” for my final paper.

 What was Frost intending for us to feel as we read how a certain conflicted traveler chooses one equally worn road over another and then contradicts himself by stating one road seems better suited, “because it was grassy and wanted wear.”  This leaves the reader to wonder what could have enticed the traveler to choose one road over the other.   Was it just a hunch or whim he has or is there some visible reason such as the intriguing way the sunlight filters through the underbrush that prompted his decision?  We do not know, because Frost doesn’t tell us.  He does tell us he kept the first road for another day, only to say the traveler doubts he will ever again find himself at that particular cross road.

And why is he telling this way off in the future. . .and with a sigh?  Does this mean he is feeling regret for not having taken the first road or is it regret that because he is just one traveler he is unable to travel both roads simultaneously?  We do not know the answer to this because again, Frost does not tell us, or does he?  What he does tell us is that the road he took has made “all the difference.”  The ambiguity intensifies here as we wonder what that difference might be.  Each reader is left to speculate and fill in the blank to resolve the meaning of the poem.  Which is the reason the poem has such wide appeal.

On The Road To A Thesis Paper!

So far, this has been an interesting and fun "road" to travel as I have "pitched" thesis claims to class mates, family and even neighbors.  It has been most helpful to receive these thoughtful comments that have inspired more thought concerning my analysis for "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.  The claim I have decided to use will actually be more of a combination of the evaluation and cause/effect claims, as they will allow a broader look at the poem as well as the author.  Dr. Burton posed a good question that will challenge the way I analyze this poem.

Thank you for your comments and questions that have guided my thinking and decision.

Which Road To Claim?

After several hours of looking back on topics I have posted, as well as classmates posts for ideas to use as a thesis for my English 251 class, I have made a decision.   

Using different types of claims for my critical analysis of Robert Frost’s poem, "The Road Not Taken," I have composed five thesis statements.  

Robert Frost

 I would appreciate your comments and  feedback you may have to strengthen and improve my thesis.

 

I have always loved Robert Frost’s poetry because of its beautiful imagery and deep meanings.  Frost had the ability to observe little noted details of nature and describe them in an appealing way. 

Frost mixed philosophy into his poetry that causes the reader deep reflection with his forthright and uncomplicated style.

The Road Not Taken

Coming Up with a Compelling Thesis

I agree with Dr. Burton, that literature does provoke thought.  If it did not, it would not have attained its universal stature and appeal.  As Lev Vygotsky said, “Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence through them."

As I consider how to evolve my responses to literature into a compelling thesis statement, I will use the guide Dr. Burton has provided.

Politically Speaking. . .

Fellow Bloggers, friends;  We are gathered here today in this period of profound change in communication.  My focus is social media’s effect on communication and relationships within the family.  Social networking has replaced the intimate interactions within most American families.  Family conversations have been replaced by texting sessions.  Family activity time has given way to countless hours of Internet surfing resulting in disconnected families.

Which reminds me of the worried mother’s comment to her teenage son as he slips through the door in the wee hours of the morning,  “would it kill you to update your Twitter status if you’re going to stay out so late?” 

Not that social networking is bad in itself, but

Sharing Our Love for Literacy

Sharing our knowledge with others is a valuable gift.  

As we apply lessons we have learned from literature in meaningful ways, we gain a better appreciation for it.  Our appreciation then builds our excitement for reading as well as our learning that will accompany us through life.  It is natural to want to share our knowledge and passion for literature socially (Learning Outcome # 4). 

Reading with my grandchildren is an excellent way to share my enthusiasm for literature that will broaden their thinking and increase their love and appreciation for good books.  As I read with them, they will sense my motivation as they experience the wonder and satisfaction that comes from reading through a variety of genres. 

James S. Jacobs and Michael O. Tunnell, authors of Children’s Literature, Briefly (3^rd edition. P. 271), believe that reading is personal as well as a natural process.  They identify some common characteristics of motivated readers that reflect these beliefs.  For example:

            Motivated readers:

o   read for pleasure and their own purposes.  

o   have personal and identifiable likes and dislikes in books.

o   are not hesitant about passing judgment on a book.

o   develop a personal attachment to books they like.

o   find time to read regularly.

Reading with my grandchildren is a pleasant experience we both look forward to.  I believe they will learn to love literature in these informal settings.  They feel safe asking questions and interjecting their opinions about the books when they are with their grandmother.   Plus. . . . ., I love the quality time we share!

A Compelling Call

Rhetoric is the art of discourse that attempts to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Though widely used in Western culture, the best known definition of rhetoric comes from Aristotle, who considers it a counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion."  Using Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals of logos, pathos, and ethos rhetoric as heuristics for understanding, Elder Dallin H. Oaks calls for unity in protecting religious freedom. 

Elder Oaks establishes  ethos, or his authority as the keynote speaker in the beginning of his speech given at Chapman University School of Law on February 4, 2011.  Being a former Justice of the Utah Supreme Court as well as a current apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides validity among both political and various religious leaders to call for religions’ former respected position in our nation.

By relying on common values to unify his audience, Oaks allows them to see how their shared fundamental values are greater than their differences in religious doctrine.