Practice Paper 1 Reflection

For this practice paper one, we analyzed the poem “At the Gym” by Mark Doty. When writing

my paper, I focused on three literary aspects that I felt stuck out whilst I read the poem: the

imagery of the gym, the motif of power, and the theme of vanity. I think the subject I struggle the

most with in English class is analyzing poetry, so, while writing my poem, I did not feel

completely confident in the conclusions I was drawing. That being said, I felt as though the tone,

style and organization of my writing was effective. Overall, I did not do too well on this paper.

But, two places that I felt I was strong were the organization and the use of references from the

text. My organization consisted of the standard intro, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. I

tried to arrange my paragraphs in order of surface level analysis to deeper analysis. In my first

body paragraph I addressed the imagery of the gym and its meaning- an aspect of the poem that

is immediately apparent when reading it. I continued to fall into deeper levels of analysis (which

I thought was correct, but turned out to be incorrect, so, reading further, please consider this fact

) as I talked about the different uses of literary devices; applied themes, such as power and

vanity; and authorial choices. Finally, my conclusion, which summarized all of my main points

and how their holistic effects on the meaning of the poem.

I was able to effectively use citations to support the claims that I was making. They were not

inserted randomly and completely out of context. I feel as though understanding how to include

citations can be important in order to cite the text in support of your claims, to further strengthen

them. An example of this is when I used the citation: “...our will to become objects of desire.” to

support my claim about vanity and how we pursue the gym to change the way that we look.

I feel as though I could improve in many areas. Firstly, my analysis of the meaning of the poem

was loosely accurate but not completely. This is a place where I could definitely improve, and
the best way to do this would be to simply practice analyzing poems. I think a good way of doing

this is the poem of the week that we do during class. This practice helps me to become more

comfortable with poem analysis and hone my skills and identifying themes, authorial choices and

underlying messages. Another way I could improve this is my adhering more to the SPECFILMS

model. I think this outline of analysis would help me to be able to identify key features in a

poem. Another area that I feel I could improve on is my understanding of literary devices. It was

pointed out by Dr. Malashewski that I had a subpar understanding of the meaning of literary

terms and when to use these terms. I think a deepened understanding of these devices will allow

me to better incorporate them into my analyses. The best way of learning about literary devices

is by not only researching them, but also purposefully identifying and using them in your own

writing.