Monday in class, after you examined Ian Falconer’s New Yorker cover The Competition, you studied Tetsuya Ishida’s painting Seedlings (1998) and chose one of those two visual texts as the subject of a writing exercise: a paragraph of summary followed by a paragraph of analysis. That exercise served both as a departure from your study of written texts and as additional writing practice. The summary and analysis of Seedlings that I wrote as samples for you appear below.
Summary
Tetsuya Ishida’s painting Seedlings depicts a classroom of uniformed 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.
Analysis
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 neckties, 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. For him, the goal of education seems to be that transformation: for the individual to be consumed by the device of study itself, to become a cold, metallic instrument.
As I noted in class yesterday, you will have the opportunity to revisit The Competition or Seedlings, or both, in the final reflection that you will compose next Monday.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Focus on Individual Words and Sentences.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. p. 48.
As you continue to revise your analysis, review these sections of Writing Analytically: “Focus on Individual Words and Phrases” (48), “What a Good Analytical Thesis Is and Does” (241-42), and “The Person Question: When and When Not to Use ‘I'” (415-17).
Individual Words and Sentences
Even though the subject of my model analysis, “The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec,” is the page of a graphic novel, focusing on the individual sentence, “I did much business with Cohn!” and within it, the word “with” (83), provided me with one of the points about connection that supports my thesis that the page “simultaneously conveys connection and separation” (par. 1).
Spiegelman, Art. Maus I. Pantheon, 1986. p. 83.
Writing of those words, I assert that “Spiegelman underscores the link with Vladek’s line of narration at the bottom of the smaller panel: ‘I did much business with Cohn!’ (83). The word ‘with’ appears directly above the rope, punctuating the connection between both Nahum Cohn and his friend Mr. Zyberberg and Mr. Zylberberg’s son-in-law, Vladek (par. 3).
A Good Analytical Thesis
The authors of Writing Analytically observe that an effective thesis results from closely examining a subject and “arriv[ing] at some point about its meaning and significance that would not have been immediately obvious to your readers” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 241). With that in mind, note that the thesis of my model analysis does not present an idea that’s stated explicitly on the page. On its surface, the page depicts Mr. Zylberberg’s account of Nazi soldiers hanging Jewish merchants. After repeatedly studying the words and panels on the page, I discovered patterns of both connection and separation: “both the grieveing survivors’ ties to the dead and the hanged men’s objectification at the hands of the Nazis” (par. 1).
First Person and Academic Writing
Although first person is appropriate in some academic prose, as the authors of Writing Analytically note, when you eliminate it, “what you lose in personal conviction, you gain in concision and directness” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 415). Read the two versions of my thesis below, and note the “concision and directness” of the latter.
First-Person Thesis
In my opinion, that haunting panel and the smaller ones that frame it illustrate the complexity of Spiegelman’s seemingly simple composition. I believe his rendering of the panels of the living in conjunction with the fragmented panels of the hanged merchants simultaneously conveys connection and separation. I think it shows the grieving survivors’ ties to the dead and the hanged men’s objectification at the hands of the Nazis.
Third-Person Thesis
That haunting panel and the smaller ones that frame it illustrate the complexity of Spiegelman’s seemingly simple composition. His rendering of the panels of the living in conjunction with the fragmented panels of the hanged merchants simultaneously conveys connection and separation: both the grieving survivors’ ties to the dead and the hanged men’s objectification at the hands of the Nazis.
The first-person thesis is less concise and direct because it states that the ideas are the writer’s rather than simply stating the ideas. The result is a thesis that is needlessly longer, by eight words, and that divides the reader’s attention between the writer and the subject.
Notably, 82% of the students who earned midterm grades in the A range earned bonus points for meeting with a Writing Center tutor to review their literacy narrative, and 80% of the students who earned As completed at least one of the three bonus assignments.
If you didn’t take advantage of those bonus point and bonus assignment opportunities in the first half of the semester, be sure to take advantage of them in the second half.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will compose a reflective essay that focuses on the processes of planning, drafting, and revising your analyses. The due date for your revised analysis is Wednesday, October 15, before class, but you have until the hard deadline, Friday, October 17, before class, to post your revision to Blackboard and publish it on your WordPress blog.
If you are still revising your analysis on Wednesday, in your reflection, you will refer to your writing as ongoing.
Also, in your reflection, you will include a minimum of one relevant quotation from Writing Analytically or from the essay, chapter, or article excerpt that serves as the subject of your analysis. Before Wednesday’s class, identify the passage you plan to quote, and draft a sentence with it in your journal. That preparation will ensure that you have ample time to integrate the quotation into your reflection before the end of Wednesday’s class period.
Yesterday in class, after we studied Ian Falconer’s New Yorker cover The Competition, we examined Tetsuya Ishida’s painting Seedlings (1998), and you chose one of those two visual texts as the subject of a writing exercise–a bibliographic entry, followed a paragraph of summary and a second paragraph of commentary–as practice is your ongoing annotation work. My versions of the assignment, which I wrote as samples for you, appear below.
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.
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 a Second Look at The Competition
Falconer, Ian. “The Competition.” Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, 9th edition, Wadsorth/Cengage, 2024. p. 108.
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.
Commentary
The self-satisfied expression of Miss New York suggests what the authors of Writing Analytically present as the second of two possible interpretations for The Competition: “[T]he magazine is . . . admitting , yes America, we do think that we’re cooler and more individual than the rest of you, but we also know that we shouldn’t be so smug about it” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 112).
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. Chapter 3: “Interpretation: Asking So What?” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 81-118.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will compose a short essay that reflects on the process of researching, drafting and revising your final essay and annotated bibliography. In it, you will include one relevant quotation from the article that served as a starting point for your project or a relevant quotation from Writing Analytically.
Today in class, after the Scrabble debriefing and the discussion of last Friday’s quiz, we will closley examine the page of Art Spiegelman’s Maus featured above.
Afterward, we will study an analysis of the page that I wrote as a model for my students in a previous semester, and you and two or three of your classmates will collaborate on an assignment that asks you to consider these questions:
Where in the essay does the writer present an instance of the connection that she addresses in her thesis? Offer one example in your answer.
Where in the essay does the writer present an instance of the separation that she addresses in her thesis?
Effective strategies for concluding analyses include (1) offering an insight about the text or an additional quotation from it, (2) revisiting the thesis without stating it verbatim, and (3) pointing to the broader implications of the analysis. Reread the conclusion of “The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec” and compose a paragraph that identifies the strategy or strategies listed above that the writer employs.
Friday’s Quiz
The first question asked you to list one punctuation rule that you learned or were reminded of in class. Some of you simply listed a term rather than a rule. Merely writing “comma splices” does not demonstrate that you know what a comma splice, or fused sentence, is or how to avoid or eliminate one. Here is one way to demonstrate your understanding of the term in your answer:
A writer creates a comma splice, or a fused sentence, when he or she places a comma, rather than a period or semicolon, between two independent clauses (complete sentences).
The second question asked you to list one style rule that you learned or were reminded of in class. Again, some of you simply listed a term rather than a rule. Merely writing “MLA style” does not demonstrate that you know the rules of MLA style. Here are some ways to demonstrate your understanding of the term in your answer:
In MLA style, numbers that can be expressed in one or two words are written as words, not figures.
In MLA style, titles of short works, such as essays, are enclosed in quotation marks, and titles of long works, such a book-length texts and feature films, are italicized (or underlined in longhand).
Thoughts are not enclosed in quotation marks; they are italicized.
The third question asked you to identify Michael Lewis, who is the author of The Blind Side, which you read an excerpt from on Monday.
Michael Lewis’s name appears on your copy of the excerpt from The Blind Side. It should also appear in the first sentence of the summary of the excerpt that you wrote in your journal, as well as in your journal notes on my September 16 blog post. We write to remember. Write notes in your journal on every reading and every blog post to retain what we have covered in class.
The fourth question asked you to identify the mostversatile consonant. Some of you answered s, but the most common consonant is not the same as the most versatile. M is the most versatile In the first position in two-letter words, it pairs with every vowel: ma, me, mi, mo, mu, and also my. In the second position, it pairs with every vowel except i: am, em, om, um.
The fifth question asked you to explain why that letter is the most versatile consonant. M is the most versatile one because in the first position in two-letter words, it pairs with every vowel: ma, me, mi, mo, mu, and also my. In the second position, it pairs with every vowel except i: am, em, om, um.
The sixth question asked you to identify the topic of Friday’s blog post. Some of you answered “Scrabble.” Others answered “Wordplay Day.” Scrabble is the subject of the post; Wordplay Day is the occasion for it. The topic of a Scrabble post is always something more specific. Last Friday’s topic was two-letter words beginning with the letters q-z.
Lastly, you had the opportunity to earn bonus points by listing words that you had learned from last Friday’s Scrabble blog and any of the other previous Scrabble posts. Many of you earned points by listing playable names from the August 23 playable names blog post and/or the two-letter words blog posts published on August 22 and 30, and September 7, 13, and 30.
Next Up
On Wednesday, after I collect your fifth and final Check, Please! worksheets, you will begin planning and drafting your textual analyses. Review all of the texts that we have studied in class, reread your journal notes on them, and determine which one appeals to you most as a subject for analysis. As your writing progreses, you may decide to focus on a different text, but making a preliminary selection before Wednesday’s class will likely lead to a more productive planning and drafting period.
Today in class, after I collect your worksheets for lesson four of Check, Please! we will examine Donald Barthelme’s short story “The School,” and in groups of three or four you will address in writing some of the elements of the story that you might explore in an analysis. Among the elements of Barthelme’s story that you will considered are these:
the narrator and the narrative voice
conflict
narrative shift (Where does “The School” make an unexpected turn?)
Whether the subject of your analysis is Bartheleme’s story or one of our earlier readings, you will begin your first paragraph with a summary of the text. Remember that a summary is an objective synopsis of a text’s key points. It should be written in third person and present tense. For example, if you choose to analyze “The School,” you might summarize it this way:
Donald Barthelme’s short story “The School” recounts a series of classroom lessons that end with the deaths of plants and animals–deaths that serve as a prelude to the unexplained death of a Korean orphan, followed by the senseless deaths of classmates and family members.
Notice that the summary above does not comment on the story in any way. What follows the summary will be the beginning of your commentary, or analysis, the thesis statement that offers your particular close reading, or interpretation, of the story. The passage below is the same as the one above, but at the end of it I have added a thesis statement in bold.
Donald Barthelme’s short story “The School” recounts a series of classroom lessons that end with the death of plants and animals–deaths that serve as a prelude to the death of a Korean orphan, followed by the deaths of classmates and family members. With conversational narration, accumulation of detail, and a shift in fictional mode, Barthelme deftly depicts the reality of the fleeting nature of life, even as the story itself veers from reality.
If I were to continue to write the analysis that I began in the previous paragraph, I would follow that opening paragraph with body paragraphs that address each of the three story elements that I include in my thesis: (1) “conversational narration,” (2) “accumulation of detail,” and (3) “shift in fictional mode.”
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble tips.
Yesterday in class, we examined Tetsuya Ishida’s painting Seedlings (1998), and you composed in your journal a one-paragraph summary followed by a paragraph of commentary or analysis. My version of the assignment, which I wrote as a sample for you, appears below.
Summary
Tetsuya Ashida’s Seedlings depicts a classroom of uniformed Asian teenagers, all males, whose teacher, seen only from the shoulders down, holds a textbook in one hand. He drapes his other hand on the head of one of the pupils, one of two students presented as microscopes with human faces.
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.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips.
In the first weeks of the course, we studied Maus as a model for our literacy narratives. Now, as we turn to more formal academic writing, we will examine Art Spiegelman’s memoir as the subject for our second essay assignment, our analysis.
Analysis
Unlike a narrative, an analysis has an explicit thesis, which often—but not always—appears at the end of the first paragraph. A thesis is not a statement of fact; instead, it’s a judgment based on a close examination of the subject—in our case, Maus.
Statement of fact: The epigraph for Maus shows the young Art Spiegelman and his father talking but not truly communicating with each other.
Thesis: The cutting remark that Spiegelman’s father makes as he saws wood illustrates the communication breakdown between him and Artie; Spiegelman’s deft depiction of that gulf foreshadows the trials he will encounter: struggling to understand his father and himself as he aims to make meaning of their lives through his comics.
Notice how the thesis above addresses what Vladek Spiegelman says and also lets the reader see him sawing wood. As you plan your analysis, keep in mind that Maus is a multimodal text. You will address both the pictures and the words on the page.
For more on writing about multimodal texts, see A Writer’s Reference (70-78).
Where to Begin
Look back through the pages of your journal and note what aspect of Spiegelman’s memoir interests you most? Here are a few that might serve as your focus:
Vladek and Art Spiegelman’s father-son relationship
Maus as a dual memoir
Maus as a meta-memoir
The Nazi persecution of the Jews (leading up to the Holocaust, depicted in Maus II)
Anja Spiegelman’s depression
Anja’s diary
Turn back to the pages of Maus devoted to the parts of the story that interest you most. Ask yourself how Spiegelman makes meaning with both his images and his words. Your answer to a how question about those words and pictures could serve as your thesis.
Questions to Ask of the Words
Are the words in the panel dialogue, narration, or both? (Dialogue is presented in speech balloons; narration or summary is presented in rectangles.)
If the panel includes dialogue, what does the exchange between the characters reveal about their relationship? Do the words of the second speaker propel the narrative forward or disrupt it?
Are any words enlarged or in boldface for emphasis?
Questions to Ask of the Pictures–the Panels, Tiers, and Pages
Is the image in the panel a close-up or a long shot?
Are the panels and the tiers on the page roughly the same size? If not, why might Spiegelman have chosen one in particular to dominate the page?
Are any of the panels borderless?
Do any of the panels break the frame and spill into the gutter (the white space between the frames)?
Are any of the panels oblique or slanted?
How do these visual effects contribute to your perception of the story? For example: What mood or atmosphere does Spiegelman create through his combination of black and white, lines, and silhouettes? How does the size of a panel or as series of panels convey the passage of time?
Look back at the panel from Maus at the top of this post. Here Art Spiegelman presents a large panel featuring his father, Vladek Spiegelman, at home with his extended family after he sneaks across the border from the Protectorate to the Reich. A small close-up frame of the older retrospective Vladek riding his exercise bike appears in the upper left, an inset in the larger image of the Spiegelmans and the Zylberbergs sitting at the dining room table.
Note how with minor changes, the preceding paragraph could serve as an opening-paragraph summary that leads to a thesis.
Chapter 4 of Art Spiegelman’s Maus I includes a large half-page panel featuring the artist’s father, Vladek, at home with his extended family after he sneaks across the border from the Protectorate to the Reich. A small close-up frame of the older retrospective Vladek riding his exercise bike appears in the upper left, an inset in the larger picture of the Spiegelmans and the Zylberbergs sitting at their dining room table. Though only one of the hundreds of panels that constitute Spiegelman’s memoir, that panel alone demonstrates the intricacy of his narrative; his deceptively simple words and drawings create a layered meta-memoir that continually moves backward and forward, from mundane moments of ordinary life to the horrors of the Nazi regime.
From that opening paragraph, I could develop an analysis essay with evidence from the panel to support my thesis. In simplest terms, the essay might look like this:
Introductory paragraph: Summary followed by thesis.
Body paragraph 1: Topic sentence followed by an examination of words and/or images (textual evidence) that support the main idea of the paragraph, the topic sentence, which in turn supports the thesis.
Body paragraph 2: Topic sentence followed by textual evidence (words and/or images) that supports the main idea of the paragraph.
Body paragraph 3: Topic sentence followed by textual evidence (words and/or images) that supports the main idea of the paragraph.
Conclusion: A restatement of the thesis that doesn’t repeat it verbatim.
In addition to returning to the essay’s thesis, many effective conclusions do one of the following:
Include a quotation from or reference to a primary or secondary source, one that emphasizes the essay’s main point or puts it in a different perspective. We will examine some secondary sources in class. You will address one of them in your conclusion or in one of your body paragraphs.
Place the analysis in a different, perhaps larger, context. For example, you might end your analysis by linking it to the pandemic or the current social or political climate.
Consider the implications of the analysis. What does it imply, or involve, or suggest about parent-child relationships, about storytelling, about memory, or about totalitarian regimes?
Jane Lucas 