Download Analyzing Literary Texts: A Method for Going Beyond Summary and more Exercises English in PDF only on Docsity! English 248-‐002 These procedures are adapted directly from Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen. A method for analysis (“The Method”) Here is a basic method for developing an analysis that moves beyond summary. 1. Notice and focus: • 1.a. List as many interesting, significant, revealing, or strange details about the text as possible. Remember that even small details can be useful as evidence in analysis. • 2.a. Choose the three details that you think are most important for understanding the text. • 3.a. Explain why these three details struck you as the most interesting, significant, revealing, or strange. Ask how these details contribute to your impression of the text as a whole, or how the details relate to each other. Pointing out relations/comparisons/differences is analysis. 2. Find patterns of repetition and contrast: • 2.a. List repetitions—details or words that repeat and write the number of times you see the repetition for each. • 2.b. List strands. Strands are groupings of similar details or words. You should be able to explain the strand’s logic if you list it as a strand—what holds it together? o For example, noise/shrieking tone/piercing tone/ugly sound/wail. That is a strand of similar adjectives and/or similar nouns. • 2.c. List organizing contrasts (for example, open/closed, black/white, masculine/feminine, inside/outside, present/remote, self/you). These are also called “binaries.” o Binary oppositions are sites of uncertainty, places where there is struggle among different points of view. Finding binaries can help you find what is at stake (for the author and the audience) in the text. o In analysis, think critically about binaries and imagine ways to refine and reformulate them as something more complex than either/or. Look for clues that the author is also writing the binary as more complex than it seems at first glance. • 2.d. Select and list the two most significant repetitions, the two most significant strands, and the two most significant contrasts. o The formulation of primary repetitions, strands, or contrasts can reveal what the text (and the text’s author) is about and interested in. This exercise often leads to a next step: what the text (and the author) is worried about or trying to resolve. • 2.e. Select one repetition, one strand, or one binary that you take to be the most significant for arriving at ideas about what the text communicates. Explain your choice; this explanation might become a thesis statement. 3. Find anomalies: • 3.a. After you have produced your three lists, selected the most important repetition/strand/contrast from each, and written a paragraph explaining your ranking, look for details that don’t seem to fit any pattern. Find anything that stands out or anything you noticed but couldn’t list as a repetition/strand/binary above. Anomalies—while they can be annoying—are important because noticing them often leads to new and better ideas. • 3.b. Also look for anything that is missing. What does the text leave out or omit, and what are the implications of this omission? Obvious or subtle omissions can open up huge doors for your own analysis.
