Yesterday in class, after you examined Ian Falconer’s New Yorker cover The Competition and Tetsuya Ishida’s painting Seedlings, you and two or three of your classmates chose one of those two visual texts as the subject of a writing exercise–a paragraph of summary and a second paragraph of commentary–as practice for your ongoing annotation work. My versions of the assignment, which I wrote as samples for you, appear below.

Seedlings Summary

Tetsuya Ishida’s Seedlings depicts a classroom of uniformed Japanese teenagers, all males, whose teacher, seen only from the shoulders down, holds a textbook in one hand. The teacher drapes his other hand on the head of one of the pupils, one of two students presented as microscopes with human faces.

Seedlings Commentary

Although the subject at hand is biology, the study of living organisms, the student seedlings barely seem alive themselves as they stare blankly into the distance. The uniformity Ishida depicts with their haircuts, crested blazers, striped neck ties, and rows of desks, takes a surrealistic twist with the images of the two pupils who have transformed into microscopes. By placing the teacher’s hand on one of the students-turned-microscope, Ishida indicates that the instructor—himself objectified by the absence of his head—approves of the metamorphosis, that for him, the goal of education is for the individual to be consumed by the subject itself, becoming merely a cold metallic instrument.

. . . and The Competition

The Competition Summary

Ian Falconer’s mostly black-and-white New Yorker cover The Competition depicts four beauty pageant contestants, three of whom stand in stark contrast to Miss New York. Her dark hair, angular body, narrowed eyes, tightly pursed lips, and two-piece bathing suit set her apart from the nearly-identical blondes–Miss Georgia, Miss California, and Miss Florida–with wide-open eyes and mouths and one-piece bathing suits.

The Competition Commentary

Miss New York’s smugness suggests that her rejection of the stereotypical trappings of beauty pageants not only sets her apart from the other contestants but also mocks them. The unknown outcome of the pageant calls into question the efficacy of Miss New York’s decision to run rogue. She aspires to represent the United States, but the individualism that the nation embraces in theory is not always seen in practice, as evidenced by the Barbie-like blondes who share the stage. Thus, Falconer’s intent remains ambiguous. Will the announcement of the winner demonstrate pride coming before a fall, or will Miss New York’s individualism triumph?  

Note that the titles The Competition and Seedlings are italicized because the names of artworks are italicized in MLA style. In the citation for The Competition, which serves as the caption (see the magazine cover above), the title is italicized because it is presented there as a text reprinted in the book-length work Writing Analytically. The title Seedlings is enclosed in quotations in the blog post title because words cannot be italicized in WordPress blog post titles.

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Next Up

Wednesday’s class will be devoted to additional research and writing for your final essay and annotated bibliography. In class, you will receive a handout that outlines your options, including, but not limited to, locating additional sources and revising annotations.