Down the road, our last three papers will ask you to respond critically to and with secondary texts. This mentioned, practice makes close to perfect. So, for this response, I would like you to dive into a little bit of research. Seek out a paragraph's worth of a text or so. You may pluck this block quote from a sports or fashion magazine, National Geographic, your favorite book (regardless of genre), Oprah Magazine, etc. Basically, your block quote can come from anywhere.
Now, here's your central challenge. This block quote should reflect your immediate understanding of our discussions and readings concerning concrete, significant detail. Here's the format I would like you to follow (please, don't number your response):
1- Name (or cite) your source in the beginning of your response.
2- Place your block quote into your response according to MLA Style guidelines.
3- Your analysis of any quote you enter as support into an academic paper should far outweigh the size of the quote itself. More to the point, your analysis should be more involved and literally take up more physical space in your paper than the quote itself. For example, MLA Style guidelines mandate that a writer should use a block quote when the material a writer wishes to quote runs for five or more lines (not sentences, necessarily) down a page in the text of origin. This said, if your block quote is five lines long, your analysis of this text should probably run for at least ten lines. Why? Well, a writer must always justify such a large presence of secondary material through and with critical analysis formed in their own words. I once read an essay in which its writer only discussed about four words from a Lyn Hejinian poem. The essay is near twenty pages in length. That's serious analysis. This is a challenge. So, you should focus to produce a minimum of 300 words of analysis. This analysis should reflect why you believe this short paragraph is an excellent example of our discussions and readings while working to point out at least 3 specific moments from this block quote that you feel are especially strong, illustrative examples of concrete, significant detail. You can analyze these moments simply by asking yourself how and why you feel like this short paragraph is a great example and then answering those questions in writing. This considered, as MLA Style guidelines demand, any writer will also always write about secondary texts in the present tense, always.
As always, here's a model that you can use for your own response. Please click then post your response as a "New Post" (link in top right hand corner of main blog page), not as a "Comment." Also, it doesn't seem like Blogspot will allow you to indent your block quote correctly, according to MLA Style guidelines. So for now, don't worry about this point of style. Anyway, here's my model:
Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite novelists. In 1979 he published his fourth novel, Suttree. What follows is the opening paragraph of the book:
Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you. (McCarthy 3)
Immediately, I should mention that this moment from McCarthy's book forsakes traditional American syntax and grammar and is italicized because McCarthy is writing to represent the inner monologue of his novel's main character. He's trying to place us inside of Cornelius Suttree's stream of consciousness, which is wrought with vivid verbs and surprising, unique descriptions. "The dusty clockless hours of the town" offer us a connotative sense that this is a still town that stands unchanged for decades and remains caught in a process of sifting into the past, into disappearance (McCarthy 3). As the town and its river are the combined setting of his novel, this is a key recognition that we as readers must register. Adding to this, diminished humanity -- the hard-luck folks of the town -- seem lost to the elements, the movements of nature, unable to control their lives. For example, "the drunk and the homeless" aren't causing chaos or a ruckus, but rather they "have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots" (McCarthy 3). McCarthy's details lend the connotative sense that these folks are well and truly isolated from the main-stream of the town and even each other. Yet, "the [town's] cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters" of these "corridors" (McCarthy 3). Apparently, small animals are better adapted to life here than some people are. "The grim perimeters" lend us a sense that this town is surrounded by a drab ominousness that one must, at least, pass through to escape this setting (McCarthy 3). However, he crafts a type of contrasting juxtaposition that reveals beauty thriving in the oft unrecognized or disregarded chambers of the town's blood-pump. For example, he writes, "now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors" (McCarthy 3). This is simply beautiful imagery. I would also like to underscore the role active verbs are filling as images. Active verbs like "lie" and "washed up" create a connotative sense of defeat, but they also contrast in important ways with "go forth" and "walk," which are verbs of progression and elevation, in the context of this paragraph. These verbs create connotative space between those who suffer and those who thrive in the environment that forces this Tennessee river town to exist, though at a near standstill, as simultaneously unforgiving and beautiful.
-Aaron Patrick Flanagan (Analysis: 505 words)
This example given, I don't expect you to produce content in the manner that I do, but please give your most honest attempt to craft a response that displays a level of sophistication that you can be proud of, can consider representative of your best efforts. Good luck!!!! Let me know immediately if you have any questions at all. Don't be intimidated by this assignment. Just jump in! Thanks to all in advance for your efforts!!
