WRT 102 Spring 2024
Analytical Essay 2, Supplemental
There are several approaches you could take to the second textual analysis essay; these are merely suggestions based on our class discussions.
“Framework” Analysis
This approach would require you to as explicitly as possible set out the larger idea / theme you’re interested in analysing and then show how the text (s) you’re using fits that idea. You can use any of the short stories or essays I’ve assigned (for instance, you could look at the conflict between the the “facts” of Science and how they get deployed in popular fiction or political discourses using “The Old Man in the Cave” or “The Nine Billion Names of God.” Or you could focus on the narrative structure of those stories—what effect does how the story is told have on how we interpret it?), or some specific chapter or moment from Sirens of Titan or 12 Monkeys, or something else which fits into our “Science Writing Faith Writing Science” theme you might have in mind. I would caution you, however, to keep the application of the idea / theme narrow—if you try to talk about the entire novel or film, or introduce too many texts into your argument / analysis, you’ll run into problems creating a coherent presentation that might be insurmountable.
“Lens” Analysis
This analytical approach uses some specific argument or idea presented by one author or text as a way of focusing your discussion of the ideas in another text.
You could use some specific argument Orwell or Krauss or Adams makes as a way of focusing your discussion of “The Old Man in the Cave” or Clarke’s short story or Vonnegut’s novel or 12 Monkeys or.… The difference between this and the “framework analysis” has to do more with the scope of your analysis: you’re drawing a more direct, one-to-one relationship here (and this is usually the easiest way to start talking about a text); you’re not going to be worried about the “larger” issue of making an argument which extends beyond a narrowly-defined context (your argument would, in other words, work to answer questions such as “What value is there to reading or discussing this text in light of the argument this other author makes?” or “How does this ‘extra information’ affect / change my /our opinion or interpretation of the text?”).
The Rhetorical Analysis
Let’s say you feel that George Orwell and Douglas Adams both make elitist, authoritarian arguments based, primarily, on their positions as writers, but you’re less bothered by Adams’s text and realise it’s because his use of Ethos makes him seem less elitist or authoritarian. You decide to focus on the rhetorical strategies Orwell and Adams employ in “What Is Science?” and “Is There An Artificial God?,” respectively, to demonstrate this. That focus is all fine and good, but you’ll still need to make an explicit argument for the value of doing so—that the authors’ rhetorical choices have a specific effect on how we receive their arguments, and we must pay attention to those choices for that reason—rather than rely on statements of fact (like “here, Orwell uses ethos…”) or vague generalities.
The “Compare/Contrast” Essay
The “Compare and Contrast” essay is probably my least favourite type of analytical essay: the structure usually leads writers to make what is, perhaps, the most brainless of all claims — “There are many similarities and differences between [text A] and [text B]…”— because they usually assume that the connection between the texts is obvious, a given. If you’d like to take this approach, I would argue / suggest that you attempt to write a “Compare” OR a “Contrast” essay (rather than doing both) and spend a larger portion of your effort trying to articulate what makes that comparison or contrast worthwhile in terms of deriving meaning from the texts.
My hope for this second analytical essay is that you’ll try a different stylistic / intellectual approach to the acts of analysis and argumentation in order to demonstrate your “versatility” as a writer and thinker to the external Portfolio reader.
I offer these suggestions as a supplement to the “Analysis Description” document I posted before the first analysis was due; I still expect you to focus yourself on your argument, no matter how you decide to approach the text (or texts) you choose.
Try not to work with the same text you discussed in your first analytical essay (if you decide to do so, make sure you’re taking a different approach to it).
For this draft, as with the first draft of Analytical Essay 1, I expect roughly 300-500 words. Remember: I’m not considering this a “finished” draft—you’re only at the start of the writing / thinking process here; be more concerned with trying to articulate your argument at this point.
Please try not to work with the same text (or texts, in the same way) you analysed in your first essay.