Length:          700 (minimum) – 900 words

Assignment details

Essay 3 calls for students to discuss personification techniques used in Emily Dickinson’s poem

How does Dickinson employ personification in this poem? How, by making objects act as humans, does she change the reader’s experience reading her work?

Writing requirements

Students will use a minimum of 2 quotes from the text to back up their claims about personification, with parenthetical citations in MLA. A Work Cited page should be included at the end of the paper, also in MLA format. See Canvas for a template.

You don’t need to summarize the poem in the essay. You do, however, need a clear introduction and thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Example Quote with Parenthetical Citation

Dickinson personifies death, naming it as a proper noun and assigning masculine pronouns, stating, “Because I could not stop for Death —/ He kindly stopped for me—” (1137).

Formatting requirements

  • The upper left-hand corner of the page should state the following information on separate lines (only on first page – do not use “header” tool in Word):
    • Name (first and last)
    • Course (English Composition II)
    • Assignment title (Essay 3)
    • Date (Month day, 2020)
  • Standard MLA formatting:
    • Times New Roman font
    • 12 pt font
    • Normal margins (1 each on each side, top, and bottom)
    • Double spacing throughout
    • Page numbers in the bottom right-hand corner (also in Times New Roman)
  • Introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion
  • No spelling errors (please use spell check in MS Word before submitting)

The final version should be submitted via the Canvas dropbox as a Microsoft Word file (,doc or .docx). Other file formats (PDF, Pages, .TXT) are not accepted and will receive a 0 grade.

Example Works Cited Entry (in MLA format –Work in an Anthology)

(Don’t forget the MLA template you can download on the Canvas modules!)