This short assignment (minimum 500 words) asks you to analyze one of our class readings from the first few weeks of the semester (Rogers, Barrett, Myers, etc.). We will do two of these short assignments, so you will end up writing about two of these readings. Your work here will serve as the foundation for Paper 1. You should submit your paper as an attachment (preferably a .doc file) via email before class the day it is due. Your analysis should address the following prompts:
Analyze the text. The first section of your analysis (probably two or three paragraphs) should focus on the main purpose, aim, and argument of the text. You can capture the author’s thinking in your own words and by incorporating quotes.
- First, articulate what the main purpose and argument is. What is the writer trying to achieve? What position do they want to argue? What ideas, issues, or problems do they explore?
- Next, explain how the author supports and develops their thinking. What sort of reasoning, evidence, examples, sources, etc., does the author draw on? Does the author address any counterarguments?
- You can potentially address other aspects of the text if they help you develop your analysis further. You can focus on formal features of the text: the organization, style or tone, or genre. You can consider how different audiences may respond to the text. You can consider how the context (when and where the text was published, other texts or events that might have shaped the author’s thinking, etc.) contributes to our understanding of the text.
Assess the uses and limits of the text. As Joseph Harris notes in a book on college writing, “academics seldom write in an all-or-nothing mode, trying to convince readers to take one side or the other of an argument. Instead their work assumes that any perspective on an issue (and there are often more than two) will have moments of both insight and blindness. … And so, in dealing with other writers, your aim should be less to prove them right or wrong, correct or mistaken, than to assess both the uses and limits of their work” (Rewriting, 25-26). So, your challenge in the second part of your analysis is to highlight aspects of the text that you find helpful, productive, effective or unhelpful, limited, or ineffective in some way. This is an opportunity for you to engage with the text on your own terms.
Your paper should follow MLA guidelines for formatting (spacing, font, first-page heading, title, header with last name and page number) and citations, both in-text and on a works cited page.
Matt King 