1. Develop a thesis that describes your reaction to Robinson’s poem. This should be an idea of your own, which you can support and develop by pointing to certain pieces of the poem, NOT an explanation of the poem.s content. Limit your thesis to one or two succinct sentences.
2. Now work out three supporting statements that support the thesis you’ve just written. Keep in mind that you’ll need to support these with evidence. Again, limit these statements to one or two succinct sentences.
3. For each of your three supporting statements, make a list of all the evidence you can think of that can support that statement. This evidence can take many forms, depending on your thesis; just keep in mind that you need to provide your audience with concrete facts and details that show them how you’ve arrived at your idea. Be as specific as possible. At least some of your evidence should be in the form of textual citations, that is, selections from the text that support your idea or ideas. Return to Robinson’s poem and find those specific stanzas or phrases that gave you your ideas in the first place.
4. Organize your three supporting statements, together with your three lists of evidence, into three paragraphs by writing out your evidence in sentence form. Begin each paragraph with its main idea (which is now a topic sentence). Construct your paragraph logically, incorporating your evidence and text citations.
You may want to add a sentence or two that clearly articulates the relationship between the evidence you’ve given and the topic sentence of the paragraph to help your reader better understand how your evidence supports the paragraph’s main idea. And, be sure to include effective transitions.