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7/31/2019 Assignment 2 - Textual and Cultural Analysis
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L. Martin \ English 101 172, 193 \ Fall 2008 \ University of Arizona 1 | P a g e
Unit 2, Essay 2
Writing Our ConflictsAn Interpretive Textual & Cultural Analysis (4-5 pages)
History may be a solution if we remember, witness, and mourn our traumatic past. The
recognition of the problem of memorythat our seemingly most personal, individualmemories are not only connected to the collective past but are also shaped by itis the
necessary first step toward our being able to say that, indeed, we heal from memory. The
tremendous hope of these writers visions, then, comes from their courage in remembering the
enormous horror of their pasts. To create from horror, to regain the power of hope; these are
the promises that arise when we heal from memory.
Cassie Premo Steele
We Heal From Memory: Sexton, Lorde, Anzalda,
and the Poetry of Witness
Important Dates
10.17 In class, sign up for Essay #1 text
10.20-10.24 Conference Week: Bring a 2 page discovery draft and your Invention Worksheet
10.27 4 page rough draft due for Peer Response (Bring 1 paper copy to class.)
10.29 Writing Workshop #2 (If you signed up for this workshop, bring 13 copies of your rough draft to class.)
10.31 Happy Halloween! Final draft of Essay #2 is due in class
Selected Texts for Essay #2
For Essay #2, I ask that you select one text for analysis from the following list. Try to select a text that
resonates with you:
Persepolis (film version) by Marjane Satrapi (streaming on D2L) The Homeland,Aztln/El Otro Mexico by Gloria Anzalda, pp. 466-476 in WAR Four Women by Nina Simone and For Women by Talib Kweli (streaming on D2L) Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People by George W. Bush, pp. 727-
733 in WAR and online athttp://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
The Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy, pp. 749-756 in WAR A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde, pp. 642-643 in WAR
We will discuss each of these texts in class, but I encourage you to browse through all of them soon. In
class on October 17, I will invite you to select one text on which to focus your attention as you compose
Essay #2.
Purpose and Audience
Essay #2 builds on the analytical framework we used during Unit 1. Therefore, the purpose of Essay #2
is very similar to the purpose of Essay #1: select one text, conduct several close readings of it, and
compose an engaging, academic essay that examines how the text workshow its words, structure,
style, tone, ideas, metaphors, or other textual strategies work together to elicit meaningful responses
from readers. Furthermore, we will continue to explore the extent to which our diverse personal
experiences shape the way we read and analyze texts. In this respect, your job is the same: help your
readers thoughtfully consider the perspective through which you are analyzing a specific text by
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.htmlhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.htmlhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.htmlhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html7/31/2019 Assignment 2 - Textual and Cultural Analysis
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L. Martin \ English 101 172, 193 \ Fall 2008 \ University of Arizona 2 | P a g e
including a brief but meaningful personal anecdote or story that begins to shed some light on youyour
personality and your ways of seeing the world and the text.
In Essay #2, however, we will include culture as an analytical lens. Your copy ofA Students Guide to
First-Year Writing articulates the purpose of Essay #2 very well:
While writing this essay, you will be looking for ways in which texts and culture are
intricately connected, the ways that culture affects audiences readings of a text, and/orthe value that is placed on cultural texts. You need to also consider whether the text
youre analyzing challenges or accommodates dominant beliefswho is being
empowered/disempowered and how? (192, emphasis added)
As you compose your essay, please keep your readers in mind. For this assignment, your readersyour
audienceincludes your classmates, yourself, and me (L. Martin).
Planning and Drafting
The composing process for Essay #2 will mirror our efforts during Unit 1: invention, a series of rough
drafts, peer response sessions, and writing workshops. Below, I provide a very general map that charts
more specific goals for Unit 2 and Essay #2:
Writing Process Goals and Actions Resources fromA Students
Guide
Invention Conduct multiple readings of your text. Read deeply,
searching for moments of cognitive dissonance that can
lead to essay topics.
pp. 65-70, Invention
Strategies and Invention and
the Imagination
Textual Analysis Identify textual strategies at work in your text. Begin
explaining how the author is using these strategies to
achieve a purpose with respect to an audience.
pp. 154-156, Analysis and
pp. 160-164, Textual
Analysis
Cultural Analysis Describe the ways in which certain aspects of a culture
are influencing writers and readers. Focus your cultural
analysis on at least one of the terms identified on pp.
189-191 inA Students Guide: ideology, cultural biases,
assumptions, rhetoric, semiotics, power & institutional
structures, inequalities, or sameness.
pp. 188-196, Culture: Another
Kind of Text and Culture as
Text
At this point, I think an example might be helpful. Lets take a look atAldo LeopoldsEscudilla. In
class, we identified several textual strategies that Leopold uses to move his audience. For example, he
uses symbolism and metaphor to draw parallels between the bear and environmental tragedy. For
Essay #2, however, we would need to go a step furtherby considering the cultural context of Escudilla.
For example, I might try to unearth some of the assumptionsthat are operating in Escudilla: Does
Leopold assume that all progress is necessarily bad? How do we know? Or, I might analyze
inequalitiesin Escudilla: To what extent are the many relationships depicted in Escudilla founded
on inequality? For example, the relationships between animal and human, between men and women,
between indigenous people and pioneers? Our goal, then, is to: (1) identify and analyze textual
strategies, (2) identify and analyze cultural influences, and (3) articulate how text and cultureare
working together to influence readers.