“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
Write an analysis of your chosen text. This analysis must be 850-1,000
words in length.
In your body paragraphs, use the methods from the Analyzing CCC materials to dive into significant
aspects of the text. “Unpacking,” “picking apart,” and “tracing the development of ideas” are the
methods you will use to draw out and emphasize significant aspects of the text.
The significant aspects of the text are context dependent. Most likely, your analysis will center around
two or three of these, not all: Imagery
Figurative language, like metaphors
Word choices and their connotations
The relative abstractness or concreteness of language and word choices
The rhetorical appeals
Specific, contextual ways the text relates to your own experiences (“tracing”)
How the text challenges conventional wisdom (“picking apart”)
Maybe even sound paterns like assonance and consonance, if really significant
Start analyzing the text as if you are preparing to write the body paragraphs. After you have generated
two to four analytical body paragraphs, ask yourself which themes, ideas, or paterns have emerged. The
themes, ideas, and paterns offer you the basis for your thesis statement and your introductory
paragraph. As the French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “The last thing you figure out when writing…is
what to put first.”
The last two paragraphs above lead to an important point: We’re not looking for a dash of this and a
sprinkle of that. We’re looking for aspects of the text that seem both significant and consistent. Take the
fabric of the text and tease out the unifying threads. Some background information will be necessary to orient your readers to the context of your chosen
text, but keep biographical information about the source to a minimum.
Don’t offer mere opinions about the text. Make claims about the text based on your understandings of
specific words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. (For example, instead of offering merely an opinionated
response, choose “tracing the development of your ideas.
”)
This paper will be graded as an analysis. It should be well-writen, but a well-writen paper that is not an
analysis will receive a failing grade, while a well-writen paper that is weak on actual analysis will receive
a low C or a D. Here’s is the grading criteria for this paper: Demonstrate the methods of “unpacking,” “picking apart,” and “tracing the development of
ideas.”
Use the I-C-E approach to handling sources. Because this assignment calls for only one source,
you may introduce your source once at the beginning. Use citations throughout your analysis so
the readers can easily identify where to find each direct quotations. Citations could be tricky for
some texts, but in most cases, use paragraph numbers (most online content and social media),
or line numbers (songs and poems), or page numbers.
• Use the MEAL paragraph structure. Basic paragraph coherence is essential.
• Keep your analysis relevant and contextual. The text itself is what you’re analyzing.
• Make good selections for direct quotations. Keep these relatively short and focused on your
purposes. One sentence or two at a time is usually best, not long passages. Of course, when you
are “unpacking,” you can use direct, partial quotations of words and short phrases.
• As noted above, the theme, patern, or idea that emerges from your analysis should be the basis
for your thesis statement and introduction.
• This paper must be between 850 words and 1,000 words, excluding the Works Cited page, the title, and the headings.
• MLA style. One-inch margins all around. Double-spaced. 12-point type. Readable font.
