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Close reading: The art and Craft of Analysis AP Language and Composition.

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Presentation on theme: "Close reading: The art and Craft of Analysis AP Language and Composition."— Presentation transcript:

1 Close reading: The art and Craft of Analysis AP Language and Composition

2 Assignment Cornell Notes  Follow along with your Cornell Notes. Chapter 2 – Close Reading  Topic/Objective: Chapter 2 – Close Reading Notes (right side) in class  You will complete the Notes (right side) in class. Questions/Main Idea (left side) for homework.  You will complete the Questions/Main Idea (left side) for homework. due on Tuesday  Cornell Notes on Chapter 2 will be due on Tuesday, September 6, 2011.

3 Close Reading  Develop an understanding of a text that is based first on the words themselves and then on the large ideas those words suggest  Start with the small details  Think about them  Discover how they affect the text’s larger meaning  When you write about close reading  Start with the larger meaning you’ve discovered and use the small details—the language itself— to support your interpretations

4 Close reading: What to look for  The interactions among subject, speaker, and audience  The response to the context and purpose of the interactions  The style : language, tone, sentence structure, colloquialisms, vocabulary, etc.

5 From “Where Nothing Says Everything” by Suzanne Berne  Essay about visiting Ground Zero, the site of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, several months after September 11, 2001  Essay discusses the trouble the author had getting a ticket to the official viewing platform  Instead she went into a deli that advertised a view of Ground Zero from its second floor.  She brought her sandwich upstairs to a table next to a large a window.


7 Analysis  Context:  The writer, not a New Yorker, visits Ground Zero and is awed by the emptiness that was once the World Trade Center  Purpose:  To describe the experience to readers who seven months later still feel the immediacy of that September morning  Ethos:  Actually going to Ground Zero—not simply musing about it  Pathos:  Emotion-laden topic  Logos:  To show that visitors to the site are repopulating the area that was decimated on September 11

8 Analyzing Style  Tone, sentence structure, vocabulary  Why is the first paragraph one sentence?  In that paragraph, why does Berne call the empty space “the disaster”?  Why does the third sentence begin with “Gathered” rather than “Firefighters”?  What examples of figurative language appear in the fourth paragraph?  What is the significance of the word huddled in the fourth paragraph?  What is the effect of the dashes/hyphens in the final sentence?

9 Analyzing Diction  Which of the important words in the passage (verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs) are general and abstract ? Which are specific and concrete ?  Are the important words formal, informal, colloquial, or slang ?  Are some words non-literal or figurative, create figures of speech such as metaphors ?

10 Analyzing Syntax  What is the order of the parts of the sentence? Is it usual (subject-verb-object), or is it inverted?  Which part of speech is more prominent — nouns or verbs?  What are the sentences like? Are they periodic (moving toward something important at the end) or cumulative (adding details that support an important idea in the beginning of the sentence)?  How does the sentence connect its words, phrases, and clauses ?

11 Talking with the text  Pay close attention to the choices a writer makes in the way he or she connects subject, speaker, and audience, as well as the choices the writer makes about style.  Style is a subset of rhetoric—it is a means of persuasion  Read an excerpt from Joan Didion’s “Los Angeles Notebook” about California’s Santa Ana winds  Keep in mind that you are not only identifying techniques and strategies, but you are also analyzing their effect  How do Didion’s choices in diction and syntax help her achieve a particular purpose?  To answer this, you must determine what the purpose is, what the choices are, and what effect those choices create.

12  Circle words you don’t know  [Identify main ideas] —thesis statements, topic sentences  Look for figures of speech or tropes  Metaphors, similes, personification  Look for imagery and details  Use the margins or post-it notes to ask questions or comment on what you have read  Then ask yourself: What effect is the author striving for ? How does this effect serve the purpose of his/her writing ? Annotation Annotation ---What to look For

13 Dialectical Journal Dialectical Journal --- double entry notebook Note taking on the left sections you think are important Note making on the right your notes NOTE TAKING PARA. NOTE MAKING 1

14 Graphic Organizer Graphic Organizer --- paragraph division a breaking points Quotation on the left from the paragraphs Paraphrase or summary on the right in your own words QUOTATION PARA. PARAPHRASE OR SUMMARIZE 1

15 Assignment  Class Work: Annotate  Work in groups of 3 to annotate two short articles from Newsweek Magazine  Due at the end of class TODAY  Homework: Annotate  Annotate “The C Word in the Hallways” by Anna Quindlen  Due at the beginning of class Wednesday, September 8, 2011

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