Readings: Paredes, “The Rio Grande”           Anzaldúa, from Borderlands/La Frontera              

Your assignment is to write a 400-500 word Reading Response in which you identify and analyze two symbols in both or either of these poems (Paredes and/or Anzaldúa).  

Possible symbols include (but are not limited to):  From “Rio Grande”:  The Rio Grande river;  the sea ; the currents From Borderlands/La Frontera:  the border fence;  the sea;  the mestizos  

Explain where the symbol appears in the poem, why it is significant to the poem, and what its larger significance might be to the speaker and/or the reader. Keep in mind our discussion of symbols from class, and be specific. 

You must analyze examples from the texts to support your interpretation.  Use MLA citation, including a Works Cited page. You are not required to refer to outside sources in this assignment; as always, any and all sources you use must be cited.  

MLA tips: 

• Quotes from poems should be cited with line numbers if possible.  Example:  In her poem, Rich describes the ladder as “always there / hanging innocently” (14-15). ( If there are no line numbers given, just use page numbers.)  

• The poems by Paredes and by Anzaldúa belong to the citation category “entry in an anthology” because the Water and Culture Reader is an anthology.   Example: 

Paredes, Americo. “The Rio Grande.” The Water and Culture Reader,   

 edited by Matthias Schubnell et al., 2nd ed., Fountainhead Press, 2013, pp. 607-608.