L. Martin \ English 101 – 172, 193 \ Fall 2008 \ University of Arizona 1 | P a g e

Unit 3, Essay 3

Writing Our Relationships A Contextual & Cultural Analysis (5-7 pages)

‚Think about what ‘true love’ and ‘romance’ mean to you. Think about your parents, your

schools, and your groups of friends over time. Think about the romantic relationships you have

been exposed to throughout your life. How have others influenced your definition of

romance and love? What are you ‘supposed to feel’ when you are in love? Do you believe in

the Hollywood/Disney version? Do you fight that version? Do you think romance itself is a

silly notion? Does it have anything to do with love? How is romance defined differently in

other cultures, including thousands of subcultures, within America?‛

p. 328, ‚Rereading Romance‛

Writing as Revision

Jillian Cantor and Leta McGaffey Sharp

Important Dates

11.14 – In class, select Essay #3 primary text

11.17 – 2 page (minimum) Discovery Draft due for invention workshop (Bring 1 paper copy to class.)

11.19 – 4 page (minimum) Rough Draft due for analysis/peer response session (Bring 1 paper copy to class.)

11.21 – Writing Workshop #3 (If you signed up for this workshop, bring 8 copies of your rough draft to class.)

11.24 – Final draft of Essay #3 is due in class

Selected Texts for Essay #3

Please select one of the following texts to focus on in Essay #3; this will be your primary text. Because

Essay #3 is a contextual analysis, you can use the remaining texts to support your thesis; these texts are

your secondary texts.

‚XLVII‛ by Pablo Neruda, p.404 in WAR

‚True Love‛ by Wislawa Szymborska, pp. 408-409 in WAR

‚So Much Water So Close to Home‛ by Raymond Carver, pp. 277-290 in WAR

‚First Ed‛ by Terry Castle, pp. 343-347 in WAR

Additionally, you might find the following texts helpful as you consider definitions of ‚culture‛ and

themes related to love and romance:

‚Rereading Romance‛ by Jillian Cantor and Leta McGaffey Sharp, pp. 327-329 in WAR.

‚Culture is Ordinary‛ by Raymond Williams, PDF on D2L

Purpose and Audience

Essay #3 brings together the various ‚threads‛ we’ve been weaving with all semester: textual analysis,

personal experience, and cultural analysis. So, to some extent, Essay #3 is similar to our previous essays:

select one primary text, conduct several close readings of it, and compose an engaging, academic essay

that examines how the text works—how its words, structure, style, tone, ideas, metaphors, or other

textual strategies work together to elicit meaningful responses from readers.

Essay #3 is different, however, in a very important way: Essay #3 invites you to explore a theme (love

and relationships) as it is expressed in our Unit Three texts. In other words, Essay #3 asks you to:

L. Martin \ English 101 – 172, 193 \ Fall 2008 \ University of Arizona 2 | P a g e

1. Select a primary text and analyze the textual strategies that the author is using to explore themes

of love and relationships.

2. Use the remaining texts as secondary sources to develop and contextualize your analysis: For

example, I might decide to focus my essay on Pablo Neruda’s use of nature imagery in his poem,

‚XLVII.‛ I would then need to contextualize my analysis of Neruda’s poem by looking at the

other texts we’ve read during Unit Three: How is love portrayed in ‚True Love‛ by Wislawa

Szymborska? How does this challenge, accommodate, or resist themes of love developed in

Terry Castle’s ‚First Ed‛? How does Neruda’s use of nature imagery relate to the images of love

presented in Raymond Carver’s ‚So Much Water So Close to Home‛? These are examples of the

types of questions we’ll ask as we develop our last essay of the semester.

Finally, as you write Essay #3, consider the ways in which your personal experience with love is (1)

shaped by a larger culture and (2) how culture and personal experience help you understand the way

love works in the Unit Three texts. Here, I would like to briefly return to A Student’s Guide to First-Year

Writing for a discussion of cultural analysis:

‚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/or the value that is placed on cultural texts. You

need to also consider whether the text you’re analyzing challenges or

accommodates dominant beliefs—who is being

empowered/disempowered and how?” (192, emphasis added)

Thus, as you compose Essay #3, keep these questions in mind:

1. How is love portrayed in the Unit Three texts? Are these texts accommodating, resisting, or

challenging the beliefs of a dominant culture?

2. What are your beliefs about love? How are these beliefs accommodating, resisting, or

challenging the beliefs of a dominant culture?

As you compose your essay, please keep your readers in mind. For this assignment, your readers—your

audience—includes your classmates, yourself, and me (L. Martin).

Planning and Drafting

The composing process for Essay #3 will reflect the process we’ve been exploring all semester:

invention, a series of rough drafts, peer response sessions, and writing workshops.

This unit will ask you—more than ever—to collaborate with your classmates. This collaboration will

include: a small research project, in-class discussions, and online Culture Blog discussions. These

collaborative activities are meant to help you think deeply about the Unit Three texts and invent ideas

that will evolve into analytical, imaginative, and thought-provoking essay topics. Your participation in

these activities, therefore, is essential—we need your help and insights!

Last, but not least—we will not have a conference week during Unit Three. However, we will have

plenty of class time to conduct small group analyses and invention workshops. Also, you are always

welcome to stop by my office hours or make an appointment to see me. We can chat about ideas, work

on specific sections of your paper, talk about tricky grammatical problems—anything you need!