Assignment One
Passage Analysis

Objective

To construct a persuasive argument about the meaning of a brief literary passage using a clearly defined approach.

Procedure

1. Choose one of the literary pieces at the ends of Chapters 3-8 in Steven Lynn's Texts and Contexts, and then choose a passage that is part of it as a focus for your paper.

2. Take notes including specific details in the passage that explain its meaning and significance. Such details include word choice, comparison/contrast, punctuation, context in the larger work, critical approach and anything else the author has used in order to make his or her meaning clear to an audience. (It may not be possible to find an example of each of these elements.) Focus on those that are the most useful in explaining the meaning of the passage. Consider also what we have talked about in class regarding the critical approach of the chapter from which you have taken this passage.

3. Formulate a thesis statement summing up the meaning and importance of the chosen passage and identifying one of the critical approaches that Lynn has defined as the one you will apply to this passage. How does the chosen critical approach produce a workable interpretation of the passage? (This critical approach may be the one from the chapter aligned with the literary work, or it may be from a different chapter.)

4. Write a draft of your argument about the passage in question. Refer to specific words and phrases in the selected passage in order to support the points in your argument. Depending on your approach, you may also refer to other quotations in the larger work, as long as you maintain your focus on the passage in question—this would necessitate finding more poems by the poet or finding the longer work from which Lynn has excerpted this passage. In addition, please be sure to refer to Lynn's explanation of the critical approach and how it applies to this passage.

5. Bring a word-processed, correctly formatted draft of this paper to class on September 20th, 2012, for peer editing. If it is not too long, include the entire chosen quotation at the top of the first page.

6. After considering feedback you received from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper.

7. Proofread your draft to identify and correct spelling and grammatical errors.

8. Turn in the completed final draft along with a peer-edited working draft in class on September 27th, 2012.

Close Reading

Close reading means paying careful attention to details in a written work. It is an element in any literary analysis, regardless of your chosen critical approach. Since you will be looking more closely at this passage than most people who read it, your paper can offer perspectives on its meaning that will engage your audience challenging its expectations. In analyzing a brief passage, you might ask yourself the following questions:

What, literally, does the passage attempt to argue?

Where in the larger work does the passage occur?

How is this passage different from any other passage in the text?

How might the argument in this passage apply to works of literature that you have read? How does it apply to what you experienced while studying literature at various levels of your education?

What will make this paper interesting to an audience consisting of your classmates, your teacher and yourself? You will want to tell them something new—that would not otherwise have occurred to them after reading this passage.

Thesis Statement

This is a one-sentence summary of your paper that spells out exactly what you are arguing in this paper.

Possible wording of a thesis statement for this paper would be—though you are welcome to produce alternatives of your own:

[Insert critical approach here] is the most productive way to analyze this [ poem / passage ] because ______________________________________ .

While it is tempting to interpret the passage as meaning _____________________ , a careful application of [insert critical approach here] reveals that is actually means _____________________________________ .

Most readers typically interpret this passage through [insert critical approach here], but [insert other critical approach here] actually produces a more interesting reading of the passage.

Writing Tips

1. MLA format means you should include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:

   Fraser, Caroline. "All Bears." 1991. Texts and Contexts: Writing about Literature with Critical Theory. Ed. Steven Lynn. New York: Pearson, 2011. 97. Print.

2. Some grammatical tips:

   1. Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers. (Note that Steven Lynn writes frequently in the passive voice.)

      Example:

      PASSIVE VOICE: "I have tried hard to clarify without distorting, but some matters have no doubt been represented to be simpler than they are." (Lynn 11)

      (Note structure: subject/verb/object)

      ACTIVE VOICE: I have tried hard to clarify without distorting, but I have no doubt represented some matters to be simpler than they are.

      (Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)

   2. Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace they're with they are and replace don't with do not (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions out there. (Note, again, that for reasons of appealing to his particular audience, Steven Lynn makes frequent use of contractions in Texts and Contexts.)

   3. Italicization is the best way to signal that you are referring to a word itself and not to the thing that the word represents. Notice how I am using italicization of the terms in the following section "d". You should also italicize titles of books (even in parenthetical references and lists of works cited) and foreign-language words like Bildungsroman or sine qua non.

   4. The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Its and whose both deviate from the above rule about possessives, which requires the addition of an apostrophe-s.