English 11
Thesis statements. Check out these links:
Good and Bad Thesis Statements



English 9 SPECTRUM
Greetings SPECTRUM! It is time for one of the most challenging poetic forms: The Shakespearean Sonnet. Let's have a look:

--- Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; 
      So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
      So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 
---

Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
Sometimes we write them as 3 stanzas with a rhyming couplet at the end, but usually we write it as a single, large stanza. Each quatrain reveals a problem - so there will be 3 problems in all, while the rhyming couplet resolves all 3 problems in a single utterance. One may suggest that each quatrain reveals a certain aspect of a bigger problem while the rhyming couplet resolves that problem.

Here's what I'll be evaluating:

1. The form of the sonnet - rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, and indented rhyming couplet.
2. Purpose of the sonnet - present 3 aspects of a problem, or 3 similar problems, and resolve it within the rhyming couplet.