AP® English Literature and Composition review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/lit/units/2/2-7)
Unit 2 · Topic 2.7
2.7 Claims and evidence in writing about poems
Writing about a poem means making a claim about what it means or how it works, then proving it with exact words and lines. You practice reading closely for details that add up to an idea, choosing the strongest lines as evidence, and explaining them instead of retelling the poem.
Key terms
- claim
- textual evidence
- commentary
- interpretation
- paraphrase
Close reading leads to a claim
Close reading means reading slowly and noticing details: a repeated word, an odd image, a change in tone. One detail alone doesn't make a claim. Several details that point the same way do. Collect them first, then ask what they have in common.
A claim about a poem must need defending. "The poem is about rivers" is a fact. "The speaker uses rivers to claim a history much older than any one life" is a claim someone could argue with.
Paraphrase is not analysis
Paraphrasing means putting the poem into your own words. It's useful for understanding, especially with older language. But it isn't analysis. Analysis explains how the poem's words create meaning. Test yourself: if your sentence would still be true of a prose summary of the poem, it's paraphrase. If it depends on the poem's exact words, images or structure, it's analysis.
Quoting a poem
- Quote short pieces and work them into your sentences.
- Use a slash ( / ) to show a line break when you quote more than one line: "Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul."
- On the exam, poems have line numbers. You can refer to them: "In lines 5–7, ..." This helps your reader find the evidence.
- Copy the words exactly, including old spellings and punctuation.
Choosing the strongest evidence
The best lines for evidence are ones where something is happening in the language: a striking image, a repeated phrase, a turn, an odd word. Lines that just carry the plot are weaker. When choosing between two quotations, pick the one where you can say more about the specific words.
Paragraph shape
Start with the claim. Bring in a precise quotation. Explain what specific words suggest and how they support the claim. Add a second quotation if it pushes the idea further. Finish by connecting back to the claim. This is the same pattern as 1.7, applied to poetry.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Building a paragraph from repeated lines
Langston Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (first published in 1921, collected in The Weary Blues, 1926) begins: "I've known rivers: / I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. // My soul has grown deep like the rivers." The speaker then names rivers: "I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young," and later the Congo, the Nile and the Mississippi. The line "My soul has grown deep like the rivers" returns at the end. Write a claim about the speaker and a paragraph that supports it.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Collect details. The speaker says "I" but claims experiences across thousands of years and three continents (Asia, Africa and North America). The rivers are "ancient as the world." The key line repeats at the end.
- Step 2: Find the pattern. The "I" is bigger than one person; it speaks for a people whose history runs back to the earliest civilizations.
- Step 3: Write a defensible claim: the speaker uses rivers to claim a long, dignified history for Black people.
- Step 4: Choose two quotations where the language is doing work, and explain specific words.
Answer: Model paragraph: Hughes's speaker uses rivers to claim a history for Black people that is as old and as deep as the world itself. The rivers are "ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins," so the speaker's knowledge reaches back before human history began. When the speaker says "I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young," the single "I" stretches across thousands of years, speaking for a whole people rather than one life. The repeated line, "My soul has grown deep like the rivers," turns that history into a kind of inner strength: like a river carving its bed over centuries, the soul has been deepened by time. The repetition at the poem's end makes the claim feel settled and certain.
Common mistakes
- Retelling the poem line by line. Organize by idea, not by order of lines.
- Quoting a long chunk and then writing one short sentence about it. Quote less and explain more.
- Making a claim about the poem's "message" that the details don't support. Build up from the evidence.
On the exam
- The poetry essay asks you to analyze how the poet uses literary elements and techniques to develop the poem's meaning. A defensible claim plus specific, explained quotations is what the evidence-and-commentary row (up to 4 of the 6 points) rewards.
- Some multiple-choice questions ask which statement best describes a poem's development. Use your paragraph-building skill: which answer is actually supported line by line?
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 2.7 Claims and evidence in writing about poems. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask” (1895), from Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896)
Which of the following would best serve as a defensible thesis about the poem?
Christina Rossetti, “Up-Hill” (1861), from Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862)
Which of the following claims about the poem is best supported?
Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (1915), from Mountain Interval (1916)
Which of the following would be the most defensible thesis about the poem?
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1921), from The Weary Blues (1926), where it is dedicated “To W. E. B. DuBois”
Which line would best support the claim that the speaker presents his people as builders of civilization, not only witnesses to history?
0 of 4 answered