At some point, these themes would be repeated in the text. Though their interpretation seems legitimate and valid factors for the heroine, close reading essays, the author places a close reading essays deliberate hint in the story that proposes that sees the story as a ghost story and there is something hidden that was influencing the main character in this story. But why vast and impossible, why a shadow? In exploiting the natural world, Shelley exposes the individual poetic mind. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. You can also focus on how this passage supports the entire text as a whole. Here are some of the more common rhetorical devices, though there are many more that could be employed: [2] X Research source Metaphor Imagery Alliteration Assonance Hyperbole Simile Repetition Personification Onomatopoeia, close reading essays.
How to Write a Close Reading Essay: General Guide
The process of writing an essay usually begins with the close reading of a text. Of course, the writer's personal experience may occasionally come into the essay, and all essays depend on the writer's own observations and knowledge. But most essays, especially academic essays, begin with a close reading of some kind of text—a painting, a movie, an event—and close reading essays with that of a written text. When you close read, you observe facts and details about the text. You may focus on a particular passage, or on the text as a whole. Your aim may be to notice all striking features of the text, including rhetorical features, structural elements, close reading essays, cultural references; or, your aim may be to notice only selected features of the text—for instance, oppositions and correspondences, or particular historical references.
Either way, making these observations constitutes the first step in the process of close reading, close reading essays. The second step is interpreting your observations. What we're basically talking about here is inductive reasoning: moving from the observation of particular facts close reading essays details to a conclusion, or interpretation, based on those observations. And, as with inductive reasoning, close reading requires careful gathering of data your observations and careful thinking about what these data add up to.
How to Begin:. Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence—the first step in moving from reader to writer. Here's a sample passage by anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley. It's from his essay called "The Hidden Teacher. Curious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle.
A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider. As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of spider I did not exist. Look for patterns in the things you've noticed about the text—repetitions, contradictions, similarities. What do we notice in the previous passage? First, close reading essays, Eiseley tells us that the orb spider taught him a lesson, thus inviting us to consider what that lesson might be. But we'll let that larger question go for now and focus on particulars—we're working inductively.
In Eiseley's next sentence, we find that close reading essays encounter "happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. What does this mean? Why would Eiseley want to remind us of tales and myth? We don't know yet, but it's curious. We make a note of it. Details of language convince us of our location "in the West"— gulch, arroyo, and buffalo grass. Beyond that, though, close reading essays, Eiseley calls the spider's web "her universe" and "the great wheel she inhabited," as in the great wheel of the heavens, close reading essays, the galaxies. By metaphor, then, the web becomes the universe, "spider universe. Close reading essays so what? Ask questions about the patterns you've noticed—especially how and why. To answer some of our own questions, close reading essays, we have to look back at the text and see what else is going on, close reading essays.
For instance, close reading essays, when Eiseley touches the web with his pencil point—an event "for which no precedent existed"—the spider, naturally, can make no sense of the pencil phenomenon: "Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas. And if we start seeing this passage in human terms, seeing the spider's situation in "her universe" as analogous to our situation in our universe which we think of as the universethen we may decide that Eiseley is suggesting that our universe the universe is also finite, that our ideas are circumscribed, and that beyond the limits of our universe there might be phenomena as fully beyond our ken as Eiseley himself—that "vast impossible shadow"—was beyond the understanding of close reading essays spider.
But why vast and impossible, why a shadow? Does Close reading essays mean God, extra-terrestrials? Or something else, something we cannot name or even imagine? Is this the lesson? Now we see that the sense of tale telling or myth at the start of the passage, plus this reference to something vast and unseen, weighs against a simple E. sort of interpretation. And though the spider can't explain, or even apprehend, Eiseley's pencil point, that pencil point is explainable—rational after all, close reading essays. So maybe not God. We need more evidence, so we go back to the text—the whole essay now, not just this one passage—and look for additional clues.
And as we proceed in this way, paying close attention to the evidence, asking questions, formulating interpretations, we engage close reading essays a process that is central to essay writing and to the whole academic enterprise: in other words, we reason toward our own ideas. CopyrightPatricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University. Skip to main content. Main Menu Utility Menu Search. Harvard College Writing Program HARVARD. FAQ Schedule an appointment Writing Resources English Grammar and Language Tutor Departmental Writing Fellows Writing Resources Writing Advice: The Barker Underground Blog Meet the tutors!
Contact Us. How to Begin: 1. I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider. It happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. I had come up a long gulch looking for fossils, and there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellow-and-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears of buffalo grass at the edge of close reading essays arroyo. It was her universe, and her senses did not extend beyond the lines and spokes of the great wheel she inhabited. Her extended claws could feel every vibration throughout that delicate structure. She knew the tug of wind, the fall of a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth's wing. Down one spoke of the web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to investigate her prey.
Writing Resources Strategies for Essay Writing How to Read an Assignment How to Do a Close Reading Developing A Thesis Outlining Topic Sentences and Signposting Transitioning: Beware of Velcro How to Write a Comparative Analysis Ending the Essay: Conclusions Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines. Quick Links Schedule an Appointment Drop-in Hours English Grammar and Language Tutor Departmental Writing Fellows Harvard Guide to Using Sources Follow HCWritingCenter. Copyright © The President and Close reading essays of Harvard College Accessibility Digital Accessibility Report Copyright Infringement.
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Apply the same techniques to this paper that were applied in in-class close readings and discussions, now taking into account the context of your chosen passage, additional selections from the text, as well as the book as a whole. Following MLA documentation style, correctly cite your chosen passage and any other quotations from the text that support your interpretations and claims. For help with MLA style, go to the Commonwealth College website www. You could then offer relevant details to support your thesis. Questions you raise may appear as part of your conclusion, suggesting avenues for further thought and study.
Paper length Your paper should be words long, maximum. Here are some other devices you can look out for: [4] X Research source Word choice Tone Voice Mood Punctuation Syntax. Part 2. Write a sentence summary of the passage you read. The author is showing us his internal struggle as he thinks through the consequences of either decision. Create a thesis about how the language and text work to create meaning. Using your summary, write another sentence explanation of how the author communicates with the reader. You can also focus on how this passage supports the entire text as a whole. Pull specific examples from the text that support your assertions. Refer back to the notes you took as you read and reread the passage. Depending on how long your essay is supposed to be, you may need to reference anywhere from examples or quotes.
Or you may use the repetition of a color or word or theme to explain how the author continually reinforces the overall message. Once you have your thesis and examples, take a look and pick out the strongest examples and arguments for your essay. Make sure that the points you pick directly tie back to your main thesis so that your essay is focused and clear. You could use a bullet-pointed list to organize the things you want to write about, or you could plan out, paragraph by paragraph, what you want to say. Part 3. Check the specifications for your essay from your teacher. Make sure your document adheres to their formatting guidelines and that you know the word or page minimum. Some teachers have specific criteria for fonts, margins, and spacing, while others may want you to follow a specific school of formatting, like MLA, APA, or Chicago.
Do your best to write clear, concise sentences and to stick to the main theme. The introduction can be a good place to give historical, social, or geographical context. Craft the body of the essay using the thesis-evidence-analysis method. For each point you decide to cover in your essay based on your close reading of the passage, craft paragraphs. They should present your claim, give the quote or proof to back up that claim, and interpret the connection. It should directly tie back to the main theme of your essay. Evidence can be a direct quote from the passage, a summary of that information, or a reference from a secondary source. Connect your main points back to your thesis in the conclusion. This is also your opportunity to say why your interpretation of the text matters.
Rather than just summarizing what you already covered in the essay, go a little deeper and make larger connections about the work as a whole. Those should all be in the actual body of the essay. Add direct quotes from the passage to support your assertions. Avoid referring to things in a general way. Proofread your essay for grammatical and spelling errors. It usually helps, too, to set your essay aside for a few hours or even an entire day before coming back to proofread it. Sometimes fresh eyes will catch things that would slip under the radar if you proofed the essay right after writing it. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.
Sites like Typely, Grammarly, and ProofreadingTool offer free feedback and edits. Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0. The purpose of close reading is to suspend personal judgment and examine a text in order to uncover and discover as much information as we can from it. In this article, we will show you some close reading essay examples; as well as, all you need to know regarding the close reading essay. The process of writing an essay usually begins with the close reading of a text. But most essays, especially academic essays, begin with a close reading of some kind of text, a painting, a movie, an event, and usually with that of a written text.
When you close read, you observe facts and details about the text. You may focus on a particular passage, or on the text as a whole. Your aim may be to notice all striking features of the text, including rhetorical features, structural elements, and cultural references; or, your aim may be to notice only selected features of the text—for instance, oppositions and correspondences, or particular historical references. Either way, making these observations constitutes the first step in the process of close reading. The second step is interpreting your observations.
And, as with inductive reasoning, close reading requires the careful gathering of data your observations and careful thinking about what these data add up to. Close reading takes us deeper into the passage, below its surface to the deeper structures of its language, syntax, and imagery, and then out again to its connections with the whole text as well as other texts, events, and ideas. Below is an example of a close reading written for the module by a now-graduated student. It demonstrates how to focus on the text and balance close reading with cultural context although is slightly longer than the essays we now ask you to write.
It is the poetic imagination that unites this limitless landscape with the miniature mind. For Shelley, the mind and the natural world are organically connected, bound together by the imagination and expressed through the medium of poetry. In exploiting the natural world, Shelley exposes the individual poetic mind. In comparison, the individual is tiny and alone.
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