Essay 1:  Analysis of a Text (or two)  (at least 1000 words)

The Task:
Over the next few weeks, you will begin to gather books, scholarly articles, newspaper pieces and other research materials about the “Southwestern” issue or conflict you are interested in exploring. You will use these sources to write a textual analysis of one or two specific texts that represent local people, places, or issues.  While you may choose any texts that you wish, some writers find it easier to analyze texts that argue a particular point (like a newspaper editorial, rather than a poem).  Further, some writers find analyzing written texts easier than visual texts.  In order to accomplish this textual analysis, you must discuss the issue at hand, (in other words, what is being represented and by whom?).   You must describe what is going on in the text(s) through a sustained close reading.   Furthermore, you must discuss the effectiveness of these representational or narrative devices.  This can be done by analyzing the strategies used by the author (e.g., statistics, experts, authority figures, facts, ethos, pathos, language, compare-contrast, tone, rhyme, figures/tropes, plot, visual images, lighting, camera angles, etc.).  Remember, it is not enough to simply describe what is happening in the text, but rather you should focus on how and why this particular group or individual expresses themselves in these ways in order to strengthen their argument/position.  Finally, you should consider the larger implications of these representations.

Some Ideas:
You might begin to think through your textual analysis by answering the following questions:

1. What is the nature of the text you are analyzing?  What is the media used?  How does the media affect the content?  Is there any background information about the relevant issues that is important to know?
2. Does this issue have two sides? Many sides? What are these sides?   How is the issue framed by the text(s)?  Does the logic of the text(s) rely on specific binary oppositions?
3. What is the context of the issue represented? (In other words, which multiple groups (people) are involved in the issue? Who are they?  What are their interests?)?
4. Is there a debatable question?  Several?  How are the presented in the text?
5. What is the primary or secondary audience for the text?  How does this affect the content or style of the text?
6. How does the performance or publication context affect these author’s expression?
7. Does the text work?  Is it moving, effective?  For what audiences?
8. What are the larger social implications of this debate for the various groups involved?

Your Audience:
Write this analysis for college-educated people who are not familiar with the text(s) you have chosen to analyze or with any theorists you use to support your analysis.  This means some introduction & summary will be necessary.

Due Dates:
Topic Exploration: 2/3
Sentence Outline:  2/8
Conference draft:    2/10
Final paper:    2/22

The Task:
Over the next few weeks you will be reading Bob Houston's Bisbee 17.  Your job will be to propose, research and write an analysis of the way that the various contexts for the author / event / novel resonate with the text itself.

A fundamental assumption underlying this assignment is that a thorough and revealing analysis of a text will not come along unless we pay attention to the contexts in which the text was composed. Another relevant assumption is that any written work is composed in a context; this context directly or indirectly influences the author. Thus, your job is to examine the context and relate it to your analysis of the text.

A definition of contexts is in order. A number of contexts can be identified: historical context (What happened in history when the event occurred or when the novel was written), cultural context (What cultural values were cherished when the event / novel occurred), social context (What were the relevant social networks like when the event / novel occurred), political context (What kind of political atmosphere existed which may influence the author's attitude towards the issue at the time of the event / novel), theoretical context (A particular theoretical framework on which the author's view was based), and finally psychological / ideological context (a synonym for background knowledge – how does the author's prior "knowledge", beliefs & attitudes on the matter shape his/her views on the issue). Be aware that your paper may focus on one context or a combination of them, depending on the focus of your analysis.

You must make an analytic arguement about the relationship of one of these contexts to the novel.

Library research is required for this assignment.  Your essay will employ at least five relevant and appropriate outside sources & you must attach an appendix with photocopies of any passages you have paraphrased or quoted highlighted.

Your Audience:
Write this analysis for college-educated people who have read Bisbee 17 but who may not be familiar with your particular approach to its context.  This means some introduction, summary & historical background may be necessary.

Due Dates:

Proposal / Abstract:    March 7
First Draft:                  March 21
Final Draft:                  March 30

The Task:

This assignment will give you an opportunity to examine the personal element in textual interpretation. If you think about your interpretations of a text, at times they may differ greatly from those of others. Why?  Because what you bring to a text - your "personal context" differs from what someone else brings to a text. For example, your life experiences, your background knowledge, your beliefs and values, culture & ideologies, all interact when you read or watch or hear a text in order to produce meaning.  Of course, your previous encounters with texts – your own history of past readings – are part of your “personal experience,” your “cultural background” that influences the way that you will react to the text at hand.   In other words, our experiences of representations construct our beliefs and values, our expectations and desires.  We in turn rely upon these cultural experiences when we read new texts or when we create new representations.

At the beginning of the class, we talked and wrote about how the “canon” of Western movies (or, say, Santa Fe style architecture) partially constructs our visions and beliefs of what the Southwest is.   Similarly, the poems, essays, short stories, longer historical fiction & movies that we have looked at this semester have all represented the people and places, problems and relationships here in the “Southwest” in different, perhaps more critical ways.  All of these representations of the Southwest – along with our in-class conversations & writings about them – are now part of the personal experiences that we bring to our readings of new texts.  Over the next few weeks, we will look at a few Southwestern movies – both popular & critical – and then you will write an essay that explains the way that your personal or cultural experiences affect the meanings and emotional reactions produced by these texts.  And vice versa:  how might these texts change the meanings you find in your past personal experiences, cultural beliefs and values about the people, places & problems here in the Southwest?  So you will have to discuss the relationships between representation, culture, and personal identity in a thoughtful, insightful manner in order to succeed with this assignment.

For this assignment, I am specifically asking you to consider questions such as these: In what ways does your personal experience affect your reading of a story? How have texts you have read this term (or otherwise experienced) made you think more critically about your own ideas, beliefs, and convictions about who you are and how you relate to this place that you live called the Southwest?  How has some aspect of your own identity been influenced by a text you have read? Begin by thinking about your own life experiences or significant events in your life that come to mind.  Reflect on these experiences and think about how specific texts we have looked at in class have changed the way you look at an issue or experience.

As you work through this assignment, choose texts that make you react strongly. Think about things that are important to you:  perhaps relationships, cultural/racial issues, a specific conflict in the Southwest, and so forth.  Develop a thesis that makes an analytical or critical assertion about the relationship between text(s) you have chosen and your own personal/cultural experience.  Make sure your topic is narrow and focused on a “Southwestern” text/issue in some way.  Organize your paper clearly and provide support in the form of quotes, paraphrases, and examples from your experiences and the text(s). Explicate this support by explaining how these examples show or illustrate or develop some aspect of your argument.  Don't just tell the reader about your topic, show the reader through examples & personal narrative.  Lastly, write in your own voice. You are critiquing your own relationship to your experiences of texts about the place you live; therefore, this assignment begs for some use of the first person.

Essay Requirements:

Your essay must be at least 5 typed, double-spaced pages in length.   Your essay should follow the MLA format and include a "Works Cited" page. Your final essay must be handed in on time with a complete portfolio for unit 3 in order to receive full credit.

Your Audience:

Write this analysis for college-educated people who are not familiar with the local Southwestern issue(s) nor with the text(s) that represent these issues.   Of course, your audience will also not be familiar with your own personal experiences that affect your responses to these representations.  This means some introduction & summary & personal narrative will be necessary in your analysis.   The trick is to smoothly integrate these different modes.

Viewing Dates:

Wednesday, April 5         6:00-8:15 pm     McClellan 207     Lone Star
Wednesday, April 12       6:00-8:15 pm     PAS 201             To be decided
By Thursday, April 13     you must have viewed Imagining Indians (available in the reserve room, main library)

Due Dates:
 
First Draft:                   April 13, by email!
Final Draft:                  April 27     (Note:  All revisions of earlier essays also due at this precise moment!)