ADHD
Choose a text: photograph, painting, story, poem, something comparatively small or short in length and analyze it. A movie or a book will not work for this assignment. Don’t choose a poem or story you or an acquaintance wrote. This text you choose must deal, in some way, with the topic you wrote about in the first paper. However, it need not have the same perspective you do – it doesn’t have to praise the topic – but it can.
For this paper, an analysis is you making a statement about the piece you are analyzing and proving that statement. You will choose the piece you’ll analyze, but, if I haven’t read or seen it, a copy of the work (hard copy, digital, or link) must be included with your paper.
This is, also, an exploratory paper – it must have depth; you must explore your reasoning and allow your reader to witness that exploration. You will point at the evidence within the text by quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing, but don’t stop there. Don’t assume that I, or any reader, will see what you see in the text. So, you must then explain how that evidence proves your thesis.
Research the text, the artist, any cultural or historical background important to your and the readers’ understanding of and connection to the text.
You will not necessarily need sources for this paper. This analysis is your view. However, if you use sources, cite them. Either MLA or APA formatting is fine. If you use sources, you will need a works cited page (if MLA) or a reference page (if APA). However, as long as you make a good-faith effort with citations and sources, a mistake will not affect your grade.
Pay attention, look closely, analyze and argue for your perspective. This analysis will be your view, and, therefore, will be an argument concerning the text you are analyzing.
You are free to use personal experience when analyzing your subject. In fact, it’s required. However, the relevance of your experience to the point you’ re making must be obvious. So, your experience or personal connection to the image or to the words is only evidence as to why you see your subject the way you do; your experience is not the analysis.
You can’t simply tell me about the first time you read a particular poem. That would be narrative only. However, that story or narrative about reading that poem might be a small part of the analysis.
Be careful, the biggest pitfall when analyzing is to retell or to over-summarize. The story has already been told, the sculpture’s been molded, that photograph has been captured. Your job is criticism (not necessarily negative) – opinion with evidence.
