Below appears a version of the assignment sheet for the textual analysis; another be distributed during class time. Some emendations will be made to suit divergent media, as webpages format differently than printed text.
The English Department notes that for the third major paper in Composition I, the textual analysis, each student “will write a 3-5 page analysis of a text (print, visual, cultural). Students will craft a thesis-driven analytical essay that demonstrates substantial understanding of the rhetorical strategies used in a text and an ability to examine, critique, and interrogate those strategies.” Such an essay will need to clearly identify a text to discuss, articulate a thesis identifying either the assumptions about audience the text makes or underlying aspects of the writer's contexts of writing, and reinforce that thesis through ample and appropriate textual and paratextual data from primary—and textual data from secondary—sources, and through exacting explanations of the same.
Textual analyses allow for in-depth investigation of a given piece of text (variously defined), explicating its devices and their effects individual and cumulative. They offer insight into how the many things that can be called texts serve to create and reinforce ideas, explicitly and implicitly, and they can be used to reveal truths about the creators and contexts of the texts, helping to promote understanding of people and groups of them.
The English Department notes that students successfully completing the assignment will prove themselves able to do the following:
analyze and adequately summarize the chosen text, with appropriate attention given to context and rhetorical situation
craft an analytical thesis that clearly states the interpretation or judgment of the text
support the thesis with reasonable and well-paragraphed evidence
create a strong title and citations appropriate for a single source paper
create an effective introduction and conclusion, and clear transitions between main ideas use appropriate tone and language for an academic audience
appropriately cite source(s)
evidence clear, well-edited writing that is free of proofreading errors and errors of grammar, mechanics, and syntax
Development of the listed abilities should be paramount in your mind as you work on the textual analysis. Being able to articulate a clear, coherent idea and support it from specific, detailed evidence in a way that makes evident the means of support is helpful in many endeavors. To do so with a minimum of errors helps you to appear educated, competent, and trustworthy, all of which will be to your benefit.
Guidelines for Text Selection
The text for this exercise must be chosen from the Opinion section of the New York Times (either in print or online), including pieces by columnists, editorials, op-ed and Opinionator pieces, pieces from the Sunday Review, pieces from Taking Note, Topics pieces, and videos, but excluding letters to the editor. The text must be recent; its publication date may not be earlier than 23 February 2014. Students are strongly encouraged to discuss their selections with the instructor to ensure that they are treating texts of sufficient heft and content to bear sustained analysis and that they are asserting a thesis appropriately responsive to the assignment. Students desiring to treat other texts may petition the instructor in that regard; decisions regarding alternative texts will be made on a case-by-case basis, but analyses of texts not from the Opinion section of the New York Times and not approved by the instructor are subject to summary failure.
Submission Guidelines
Drafts for early review are due in advance of the submission draft, so that problems in the profiles may be addressed and strengths enhanced. A hard-copy, typed version of the draft is due at the beginning of class on 7 March 2014 so that it may be reviewed during class time by a classmate; it will be taken as a 10-point minor assignment. An online version must be submitted to the instructor as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf document via D2L before the beginning of class time on 14 March 2014; it will also be taken as a 10-point minor assignment. Both drafts will benefit from being completed or nearly-completed papers; the more work done in advance, the more commentary is possible, and the more use you can derive from those comments. Please be sure to take the comments on early drafts seriously and correct problems in the text as it appears in those early drafts, as it is only in those drafts that revision is possible.
A submission draft—a polished, finished version of the profile—must be turned in as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf document via D2L no later than the beginning of class time on 28 March 2014; it will count for 200 of the 1000 total points for the course. The score for the submission draft will be calculated according to the following criteria:
Clarity and Appropriateness of Thesis (20 points)
Is there a clearly articulated thesis or a clear implicit thesis?
Is the thesis one which clearly and appropriately articulates a stance regarding the selected work's author or audience?
Clarity and Appropriateness of Evidence (50 points)
Does the paper make use of relevant and specific primary textual and paratextual data, as well as necessary secondary source material, in support of the thesis?
Does the paper account for the provenance of all such data?
Is the information appropriately and effectively integrated into the paper?
Is the proportion of source material in the piece appropriate?
Clarity and Appropriateness of Explanations of Evidence (50 points)
Is the relevance of the information used to support the thesis made clear?
Is the means through which the data supports the thesis made clear?
Effectiveness of Organization (40 points)
Does the paper follow a reasonable order of discussion?
Does it move from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and section to section smoothly and well? Does it deploy transitions that effectively indicate the relationships among the ideas expressed?
Adherence to Assigned Formatting Standards (15 points)
Is the paper submitted through D2L as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file? Is it typed in double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman with one-inch margins, and with headings and page numbers as appropriate? Are paragraphs indented one-half inch rather than being offset by blank lines?
Adherence to Conventions of Academic American English (25 points)
Is the paper relatively free of errors in proofreading, grammar (including but not limited to subject/verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent agreement, and sentence fragments), mechanics (including but not limited to homophone confusion and mistaken spelling and punctuation) and syntax?
Is the writing in the paper consistent with college-level discourse? Does its vocabulary and phrasing reflect entry into higher education? Do its tone and register reflect academic treatment of the subject being discussed?
Notes
Pulling from the specified text or from outside resources without citation will be investigated as plagiarism. Please do not do it.
Examples of the kind of writing the textual analysis requires are easily found. Academic journals such as The Explicator offer many. Some are available on my teaching blog, as noted below (note that their formatting and thrust differ from that expected for the ENGL 1113 Textual Analysis assignment):
An example more narrowly targeted towards the specific assignment can be found below (note that its formatting differs from that expected for the ENGL 1113 Textual Analysis assignment submitted by students):
Copies of the rubrics by which the instructor draft and final draft will be assessed appear in a PDF file, below.
More information is forthcoming.