Textual Analysis
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The document provides guidance on analyzing texts for essay writing. It discusses analyzing parts of a work, creating a thesis, and dos and don'ts of analysis. Key points include breaking a text into parts, examining response and ideas, stating a purpose, using examples and quotes, building on class ideas, and ensuring evidence supports the thesis. A group activity on textual analysis and reflection writing is assigned, with reviewing chapters on revising and finding a text for an analysis paper as homework.
Textual Analysis
- 1. Week 4 Today ● Textual Analysis ● Group Activity - Textual Analysis ● Reflection Writing Homework ● Review Revising and Editing Ch 27&28 ● Find a “text” for textual analysis paper
- 2. What does it mean to analyze? ● Analyze means “to separate a subject into its parts (analyze), or the act or result of doing so” (Kennedy, Kennedy, and Aaron 692). ● The process of analyzing involves breaking an object into its parts and examining those parts.
- 4. Analysis for Essay Writing ● When analyzing a piece of writing, first examine your response to the elements of the work. ● Brainstorm your ideas about the work you are analyzing. ● Create a working thesis (statement of purpose) about the piece you are analyzing.
- 6. When viewed for the first time, the television show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit might seem very depressing but the episode “Paternity” is one which has a happy ending because Stabler’s wife has a baby and Benson helps with the delivery.
- 7. Analyze and respond to the text from your own personal viewpoint as an individual reader. Ask questions such as ● How much does it agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong? Why or why not? ● How much were your views challenged? ● How well does it address things that you, personally, care about and consider important in the world? ● How much new did you learn from it? ● How did you like or enjoy the text overall, and (most importantly) why or why not? Keep in mind that some texts (news reports, textbooks, obituaries) are not written to be enjoying or entertaining.
- 8. Analysis Dos and Don’ts DO NOT: Only summarize plot DO NOT: Say you didn't like a character DO NOT: Generalize and provide vague reasons behind your Textual Analysis DO NOT: Make superficial, obvious insights DO NOT: Simply repeat ideas mentioned in class by the instructor or by other students.
- 9. Analysis Dos and Don’ts DO: Analyze the thematic and symbolic significance of events in the story DO: Explain how a character was unlikable, how that affects the reading experience, and why that may or may not have been the author's intent DO: Use specific examples from the text (including quotes, if significant). DO: Think deeply, and look closely into the work. Notice things that a casual reader would not. DO: Build off ideas mentioned in class, adding your own thoughts and insights to the discussion.
- 10. Composing your Essay ● Like any type of essay, an analytical essay consists of an introductory paragraph ending with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a strong concluding paragraph. ● Make sure that all the supporting evidence in your body paragraphs directly support your thesis.
- 11. Conclusion ● An analytical essay involves a great deal of critical thinking on the part of the writer. ● The reward at the end of the process is an original creation.
- 12. Group Activity
Editor's Notes
- #4: Look at Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa, and you see a woman smiling. But you are also aware of a painting. You see different color paint (well, not in this illustration!) and you see how the paint was applied to the wood. You recognize how aspects of the painting are highlighted by their placement or by the lighting. When examining a painting, you are aware that you are examining a work created by someone. You are aware of an intention behind the work, an attempt to portray something a particular way. Since the painting does not come out and actively state a meaning, you are consciously aware of your own efforts to find meaning in the painting: Is she smiling? Self-conscious? Alluring? Aloof? Looking at the Mona Lisa, you know that you are not looking at Mona Lisa, a person, but The Mona Lisa, a painting. You can talk not only about the meaning of the picture, but also about how it was crafted. What is the significance of the dream landscape in the background? Why, when we focus on the left side of the picture, does the woman looks somehow taller or more erect than if we focus on the right side? The more features of the painting that you recognize, the more powerful your interpretation will be. When reading texts, as when reading paintings, we increase understanding by recognizing the craftsmanship of the creation, the choices that the artist/author made to portray the topic a certain way. And yet there is still that feeling that texts are somehow different. Texts do differ from art insofar as they actually seem to come out and say something. There are assertions "in black and white" to fall back on. We can restate a text; we cannot restate a painting or action. Yet a text is simply symbols on a page. Readers bring to their reading recognition of those symbols, an understanding of what the words mean within the given social and historical context, and an understanding of the remarks within their own framework of what might make sense, or what they might imagine an author to have intended.
- #5: When analyzing a piece of writing, first examine your response to the elements of the work. Writer Purpose Audience Topic Context Brainstorm your ideas about the work you are analyzing. Freewriting Two-column notes Outlining Create a working thesis (statement of purpose) about the piece you are analyzing.
- #6: When viewed for the first time, the television show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit might seem very depressing but the episode “Paternity” is one which has a happy ending because Stabler’s wife has a baby and Benson helps with the delivery.