Assignment 6 is an exercise in basic critical analysis. Analysis is a form of the description pattern. To analyze means to examine the parts of something—for this course, a written work—to establish their relationship to the whole. In many written works, the whole means the achievement of some main idea or theme.
Critical analysis, in this assignment, is a thoughtful consideration of how a writer achieves meaning in a particular work. In this critical analysis, you are more concerned with how a writer conveys meaning than what that meaning is. An analysis is not an extended summary or unsubstantiated opinions. An analysis explains the process the author has used to create the work. How do the writing techniques that the author uses convey the meaning of the article?
To prepare for this assignment:
Estimated time needed to complete: 2-3 hours
Read this lecture carefully and thoroughly.
Read "The Testimony of Patience Kershaw" in Assignment 6 Reading Selections.
Review the Purposes and Patterns Primer: Expressive Purpose.
Review Purposes and Patterns Primer: Referential Purpose for information on referential-interpretive writing.
Review the Purpose and Pattern Review.
Review the Quotation Marks section in the Online Grammar Handbook for information on quotation formats.
Contents
Basics of Analysis
Sample Assignment 6
ASSIGNMENT 6 REQUIREMENTS
Guidelines for Submitting Your Assignment Files
Basics of Analysis
As a form of the description pattern, analysis shows the relationship of the details to the whole. The whole is the meaning of the reading selection. The details are the purposes and patterns used to accomplish that meaning.
To analyze in this assignment, you must be familiar with the purposes and patterns of writing. You must know the difference between expressive writing and referential writing, or between referential writing and persuasive writing. You must know the forms of the patterns and the functions of those forms. For example, cause-effect is a form of the narration pattern; its function is to show the causal relationship between events. Review the Purposes and Patterns Primer for details about each purpose and pattern.
Purpose and Pattern Compatibility
In general, all the patterns get along fine, but some of the purposes are not very compatible. Referential writing is objective and expressive writing is subjective, so these two purposes are not really seen together often, though obviously facts can be used in expressive writing. The referential purpose might be a secondary purpose to the expressive purpose, but seldom is the expressive purpose secondary to the referential purpose.
Similarly, referential writing is factual and most literary writing is fictional, so these two purposes don't go well together, either. The literary purpose might be a secondary purpose to the referential purpose, but seldom is the referential purpose secondary to the literary purpose.
Finally, when persuasion is a purpose, it is typically the primary purpose. The attempt to persuade tends to overshadow all the other purposes.
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In this assignment, you will be answering two basic questions.
What purpose is used to write the short passage? In this assignment, that question is already answered: expressive purpose.
How do you know the purpose is expressive? This question is what you have to answer in this assignment. To answer it, you directly identify the characteristics of expressive writing and give examples to demonstrate the presence of those characteristics in the reading selection.
What are the characteristics of expressive writing? The writer expresses his or her feelings, so personal feelings are a characteristic. The writer often tells about personal experiences and uses first-person pronouns--these are characteristics of expressive writing, too. Does Patience Kershaw display these characteristics in her testimony? If so, then her purpose can be called expressive. The Purposes and Patterns Primer lists other major and minor characteristics of this purpose. Use these characteristics in your analysis to support your analytical claims. If necessary, explain how examples illustrate the characteristic.
When you analyze purposes and patterns, assume your reader does not know much about purposes and patterns. You need to inform your reader directly. Do not make your reader guess or assume what your meaning is. Tell the reader directly what the characteristics of the purpose or pattern are. See the sample analysis below to see how the characteristics are directly presented.
In Assignment 6, follow this process to write your one paragraph of analysis:
- Identify the author and title of the article in the first sentence of your paragraph.
- Identify the purpose you are analyzing, in this case expressive writing.
- In your analysis, you will directly identify the main characteristics of the expressive purpose used by the writer, such as first-person pronouns, personal feelings, personal experiences, self-definition, or self-evaluation.
- First identify one characteristic directly and give an example. Tie the example directly to the characteristic.
- Then identify another characteristic directly and give an example. Tie the example directly to the characteristic.
- Then identify another characteristic directly and give an example. Tie the example directly to the characteristic.
- After you provide three main characteristics, you can discuss minor characteristics, such as slang, humor, or vulgarity. You should give examples of minor characteristics, too.
- Provide a summative conclusion that the presence of the characteristics demonstrates the use of the purpose.
Again, your goal in this assignment is to demonstrate that the author has used a particular writing purpose to write the article. You are discussing how the article is written, not what the article is about. You are analyzing in this assignment, not summarizing.
Sample Assignment 6
Note: Your Assignment 6 submission must be double-spaced.
The article used in the sample is "The Testimony of Patience Kershaw," available in Assignment 6 Reading Selections.
Patience Kershaw uses the expressive purpose in "The Testimony of Patience Kershaw." One
main characteristic of expressive writing, the use of first-person pronouns, is evident through
most of the article. For example, the girl says in the first sentence, "My father has been dead
about a year." Kershaw uses a second characteristic of expressive writing, personal experiences,
as she testifies about her work in the coal mines. She says, "I go to pit at five o'clock in the
morning." She also gives details about the work she must do in the mines and the conditions she must work in. She uses another expressive characteristic, self-definition, when she admits
that she can neither read nor write. Finally, Kershaw expresses her personal feelings, a key characteristic of expressive writing, when she says she would rather work in a mill than in the coal mine. The presence of these
characteristics demonstrates the writer's effective use of the expressive purpose.
Here is the same paragraph of analysis again. This time, the direct identification of each characteristic is underlined for emphasis. You do not have to underline the direct identification of each characteristic in your analysis.
Patience Kershaw uses the expressive purpose in "The Testimony of Patience Kershaw." One main characteristic of expressive writing, the use of first-person pronouns, is evident through most of the article. For example, the girl says in the first sentence, "My father has been dead about a year." Kershaw uses a second characteristic of expressive writing, personal experiences, as she testifies about her work in the coal mines. She says, "I go to pit at five o'clock in the morning." She also gives details about the work she must do in the mines and the conditions she must work in. She uses another expressive characteristic, self-definition, when she admits that she can neither read nor write. Finally, Kershaw expresses her personal feelings, a key characteristic of expressive writing, when she says she would rather work in a mill than in the coal mine. The presence of these characteristics demonstrates the writer's effective use of the expressive purpose.
Notice how the analysis directly identifies the characteristics of the expressive purpose. You need to do the same thing. Don't assume your reader knows much about the purpose. Your goal is to inform your reader about the purpose and show how the writer uses the purpose in your chosen article.
Notice also the summative concluding sentence. Remember, you are writing about how the article is written, not about the content of the article. Use the content of the article only to illustrate a characteristic of the purpose that you have directly identified. Your topic sentence and concluding sentence should be about the purpose, not the content of the article. If you are writing a paragraph analyzing a pattern, you should use the same structure as for a paragraph about purpose; include a summative concluding sentence about the pattern, not the content.
Notes on this analysis:
First sentence: identifies the author, title of the reading selection, and the writing purpose.
Second and third sentences: identify a main characteristic of expressive writing and give a related example.
Fourth sentence: identifies another main characteristic of expressive writing and includes a related example.
Fifth sentence: gives another example of the second main characteristic.
Sixth sentence: identifies another main characteristic of expressive writing and includes a related example.
Seventh sentence: identifies another main characteristic of expressive writing and includes a related example.
Eighth sentence: gives a summative conclusion and concise evaluation.
ASSIGNMENT 6 REQUIREMENTS
First, read one of these articles:
"The Whistle," by Benjamin Franklin
"The Start," by Nellie Bly
"My Escape from Slavery," by Frederick Douglass
"Relatives," by Lucy Larcom
"The Angel of Death," by Mary A. Maverick
"Ain't I A Woman?" by Sojourner Truth
"The Coming End," by Fritz Kreisler
"Truth of Death," by Lev (Leo) Tolstoy
All articles are available in Assignment 6 Reading Selections.
Second, begin with the assumption that each article uses a primary expressive purpose. Using your knowledge of the characteristics of the expressive purpose, write one referential-interpretive paragraph (200 words minimum, 300 words maximum) that demonstrates why the article is expressive.
- Model your paragraph on the sample analysis above.
- Indent the first line of your paragraph at least five spaces.
- In the first sentence of your paragraph, identify the author, title of the reading selection, and the writing purpose. Enclose the title of the reading selection in quotation marks. Do not italicize the title of the reading selection.
- Directly identify at least three major characteristics of the purpose as given in the Purposes and Patterns Primer.
- Give a specific example for each characteristic.
- This assignment is to be written using the referential-interpretive purpose, so do not use first-person and second-person pronouns.
- Limit your use of direct quotes to no more than 10% of the total word count.
Submit this assignment using the Submissions button in Blackboard.
Guidelines for Submitting Your Assignment Files
If you are not sure how to submit your assignment file by now, review the guidelines at this link to Assignment 2.
