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The Critical/Analytical Response to Text The Craft of Writing an Essay

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The Critical/Analytical Response to Text The Craft of Writing an Essay Part 1 PLANNING THE ESSAY WRITING A THESIS STATEMENT A Think Aloud Process – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Critical/Analytical Response to Text The Craft of Writing an Essay


1
The Critical/Analytical Response to TextThe
Craft of Writing an Essay Part 1
  • PLANNING THE ESSAY
  • WRITING A THESIS STATEMENT
  • A Think Aloud Process

2
Deciding on your thesis statement The first
step to planning your essay
  • The assumption is that you know your text inside
    out and have developed your own ideas in relation
    to the text
  • For a literary essay, you are asked to make a
    debatable claim that demonstrates your insight on
    a specific topic (essential question). Your claim
    should strike the reader as an aha rather than
    a duh observation

3
Diploma exam
  • For your Diploma exam, you will be given an
    essential question that can be related to a wide
    variety of texts. For example
  • Discuss the ideas developed by the text creator
    in your chosen text about the ways in which
    individuals struggle to restore honour and
    certainty.

4
STEP ONE Interpret the question (work the prompt)
  • Underline the key thematic words
    (honour/certainty) and the key words (struggle to
    restore)
  • develop your own interpretation
  • How will you describe honour
  • How will you describe certainty
  • How will you address the concept of restoration
  • How will you massage your interpretations with
    your chosen text

5
STEP TWODecide on a text and create the question
  • Change the statement into a question (that you
    can answer) related to a specific text of your
    choice
  • How/Why/When (under what circumstances) do / does
    (name character/s) struggle to restore honour and
    certainty in authors (name text)?

6
STEP THREEBrainstorm a subset of questions
  • As you do so, think of possible answers. Let your
    imagination roam over all possible questions
  • How is honour and certainty compromised in the
    play?
  • Which characters (or characters) responses to
    this struggle intrigue me?
  • How does / do the character/s display / interpret
    honour and does this interpretation change
    throughout the course of the text?
  • How does / do the character/s display /
    interpret honour?
  • How does / do the character/s display / respond
    to certainty?
  • Which characters (or characters) responses best
    demonstrate the struggle with compromised honour
    and / or certainty?
  • What is the nature of the characters (or
    characters) struggle (internal/external)?
  • How does the character (do the characters) of
    your choice attempt to restore honour and
    certainty?
  • Is honour and certainty restored in the end by
    the actions of your character(s) and if so how?

7
STEP FOURCreate your claim blueprint your
supporting arguments
  • Look for a pattern (group your ideas) in your
    brainstorming that leads to a potential claim
  • Think of an argument/claim (that contains
    potential for debate)
  • Create at least three supporting arguments that
    support your main argument/claim
  • Be specific have specific incidents from the
    play to back up your point

8
STEP FIVEWrite your thesis
  • A good thesis is not only a debatable claim, but
    also suggests the structure of the paper. The
    thesis allows the reader to imagine and
    anticipate the flow of the paper
  • Your statement should
  • State the topic
  • State your insight/interpretation/claim
  • Refer the text if you have not already done so in
    your introductory paragraph
  • State specific character(s) involved
  • Suggest a sequence of points that logically prove
    the essay's main assertion
  • Be expressed in the present tense

9
STEP SIXTest your thesis against the 5-part MTS
(magic thesis statement) formula
  1. Identify what you are looking at (aspect of
    honour and certainty in character/s)
  2. identify the situation you can see / are
    describing
  3. State where that leads
  4. Point out the significance
  5. Be able to restate your thesis in other words
    literally write a sentence following your thesis
    that begins with in other words

10
FORMULA SENTENCE(When in doubt, try this)
  • Think about it this way
  • By looking at ___, we see that ___ (unique
    insight) which is significant because
  • Write it this way
  • In (name of text), the author (name) develops the
    idea that
  • Consider
  • whether your statement implies cause and effect
    (a leads to statement), makes connections or
    comparisons (an is statement) or comments on a
    theme related to the prompt

11
LAST STEPTest your thesis (CSSMI)
  • Clarity
  • Use straightforward language avoid reference to
    philosophers/philosophies or anything esoteric
  • Specificity
  • Is your thesis it too vague? For example, the
    statement "Shakespeare's characterization
    demonstrates his incredible insight as a
    playwright" is too vague because your reader
    can't be sure what you mean by "insight" or how
    it relates to "characterization"
  • Strength
  • Make sure you have at least three arguments (in
    mind) that support your thesis
  • Make sure you have evidence for each argument
  • Each argument should be the material for future
    body paragraphs
  • Manageability
  • Can you handle the topic within the time
    frame/space provided?
  • Interest
  • Does it state the obvious (duh)? If it's so
    obvious that nobody could fail to see it, it's
    probably not worth writing about

12
EXAMPLE 1 (LEVEL 2-3)The struggle to restore
honour and certainty
  • Decisions can change a life. We do not know if
    anything graceful or miserable will come of our
    decisions. The choices that we make may cause
    death or fatal disasters. However, honour and
    certainty will also be established during the
    process of our decisions making. Inner conflict
    is one of the most important ways to develop our
    ideas about making choices. It provides the right
    direction to take actions and helps us achieve
    certain goals. In Shakespeares Hamlet, Hamlets
    decision to avenge his fathers death helps him
    restore honour and certainty.
  • Level 2-3 thesis needs clarification in other
    words and paragraph needs blueprinting

13
EXAMPLE 2 (LEVEL 4)The struggle to restore
honour and certainty
  • The definition of honour is laden with irony. In
    one sense, to be honourable is to find personal
    integrity or allegiance to moral principles in
    another sense, it is society that judges ones
    possession of the virtue. In fact religious and
    societal beliefs determine what makes an action
    honourable or not. In contrast, certainty is
    characterized the degree of security felt by an
    individual. The play Hamlet focuses on an
    individual plagued by uncertainty who finds
    himself forced to make several significant
    decisions despite the ambiguity around him, and
    realizes in the process that the faith in
    Christianity he held so strongly merely
    complicates his decisions, rather than showing
    him which direction to take. Throughout the
    course of the play Gertrude, Claudius, and Hamlet
    find that in order to restore certainty they must
    compromise their honour which, considering the
    time period in which was out of the question. In
    Shakespeares Hamlet, the characters demonstrate
    that honour and certainty often conflict.
    Shakespeare uses Hamlet to show that in order to
    achieve certainty, it is necessary for honour to
    be compromised. In other words, an individual
    must be able to reject societal beliefs in order
    to find truth.
  • Level 4 a good claim but is this possible to
    demonstrate in the play? Does not address the
    struggle to restore. This paragraph would also
    be stronger if it contained a transition This
    can be most clearly seen in Hamlet when.

14
EXAMPLE 3 (LEVEL 4-5)The significance of
idealism and truth in an individuals life
  • Materialism the philosophical belief that a
    conclusive connection between material wealth and
    happiness not only exists, but is in fact the
    pathway to spiritual enlightenment. This belief
    was highly embraced by the Roman Catholic Church
    during the 15th and 16th century, much to the
    dismay of Protestants trying to establish their
    religious rights. Queen Elizabeth was responsible
    for nationally recognizing the rights of
    Protestants in England, and peace was found
    between Protestants and Catholics. William
    Shakespeare, a playwright adored by both Queen
    Elizabeth and James I, was a Protestant, and he
    portrayed these contrasting beliefs into his
    plays in subtle ways. Protestants believe in
    idealistic thought idealism being defined as the
    opposite of materialism the path to
    enlightenment is though the mind. Another related
    belief of theirs is that if one can find truth in
    life, they will discover salvation. Truths
    definition is personal and different for
    everyoneone is expected to define it for
    themselves. Shakespeares play Hamlet juxtaposes
    these two beliefs between characters both
    idealistic thought and the search for truth in
    life prove to be significant to the lives of King
    Claudius, Hamlet, and Rosencrantz Guildenstern.
    King Claudius belief in an idealistic nation of
    Denmark leads him to killing his brother
    Hamlets search for truth in life allows him to
    come to conclusions about life, death and murder
    and Rosencrantz Guildensterns idealistic and
    naive truthful outlook on life land them in
    mortal danger.
  • Level 4 that is on its way to a 5 the thesis
    needs to make a claim not be an observation

15
EXAMPLE 4 (LEVEL 5-almost)The significance of
idealism and truth in an individuals life
  • Hamlet could be seen as an unorthodox medieval
    detective. He is preoccupied, almost obsessed
    with uncovering the truth the truth behind his
    fathers murder, and the truth of the ghosts
    identity and words. He is also struggling with
    ideals notions about how he should behave in
    the presence of his God, his peers and family,
    and how he should act to restore good to his
    kingdom in the wake of his fathers murder. It is
    also important to note Hamlets struggles with
    the contradictions between certain ideals. Hamlet
    could be accused of being indecisive, but this is
    a very superficial view. To ask Why is Hamlet
    indecisive? is the more effective approach. By
    looking at Hamlets character and his internal
    struggles, it becomes clear that his questioning
    of the truth, his own idealism, and his struggles
    with contradicting ideals result in his tragic
    hesitancy.
  • Level 5 almost thesis needs clarification

16
The Five Paragraph Essay
  • See
  • The Craft of Essay Writing Part 2
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