Today in class, we will examine Ian Falconer’s New Yorker magazine cover The Competition, and as practice in your ongoing process of annotating sources, you and two or three of your classmates, will compose a one-paragraph summary of the cover, followed by a second paragraph that presents your commentary (or close reading or analysis) of The Competition.
In your second paragraph, your commentary, incorporate a quotation from one of the interpretations of the cover presented on page 89, and follow your quotation with a parenthetical citation. The two interpretations offered by the textbook’s authors appear below.
In Writing Analytically, David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen note that “[a]t its most serious, The New Yorker cover may speak to American history, in which New York has been the point of entry for generations of immigrants, the ‘dark’ (literally and figuratively) in the face of America’s blonde northern European legacy” (89).
Also, in Writing Analytically, David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen observe that “we might find ourselves wishing to leaven this dark reading with comic overtones–that the magazine is . . . admitting, yes America, we do think that we’re cooler and more individual and less plastic than the rest of you, but we also know that we shouldn’t be so smug about it” (89).
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. Chapter 3: “Interpretation: Moving from Observation to Implication.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 70-97.
Next Up
At the beginning of class on Wednesday we will review your annotations on “The Competition,” and you will have the remainder of the period to devote to your ongoing writing and research for your final essay and annotated bibliography.
Jane Lucas 