Specs: Around 1,000 words (3-4 pages), double-spaced, 12-pt font, with an original title specific to your close reading, and your name (no cover page, please).
Prompt: In this 3–4-page analytical essay, you will interpret the construction of a passage of your choice using the techniques of close reading. That means paying attention to the passage’s rhetorical and figurative devices, diction, viewpoint, structure, concepts, themes, and contexts. You will be examining how the passage creates meaning, not simply what the passage is about.
The strongest essays will begin with a brief introduction that (1) introduces your chosen quote or passage (or quotes, see below) in your own words, and that (2) formulates a thesis statement specific to your passage. Remember to integrate all quotes into your own sentences. An excellent close reading will provide specific examples (“exact quotes” are usually best) to illustrate how the passage creates meaning. In addition, strong close readings will refer to the passage’s contexts (literary, cultural, historical, and so on). Finally, the most successful close readings will articulate how the passage is related to the text as a whole. You don’t need a conclusion, but you should have well-organized paragraphs.
Please note that your close reading essay can focus on a single passage (perhaps even a single word, phrase, line, or sentence) or it can bring together 2-3 passages that it compares, contrasts, and/or synthesizes. Keep in mind that focusing on a single short passage will likely require references to other passages from the text(s). Don’t worry: we’ll workshop these approaches in class. I encourage you to be creative – surprise me!
Sources and citations: You do not need to consult any outside sources to write this essay, but you should cite the page numbers of textual references in parentheses (31). Online sources will not have page numbers, so there is no need to cite them parenthetically.
(The book being used is: Signs Preceding the End of the World
Book by Yuri Herrera
Book by Yuri Herrera
Page 20
Quote: “Out on the concrete and steel-girder plain, though, she sensed another presence straight off, scattered about like bolts fallen from a window: on street corners, on scaffolding, on sidewalks; fleeting looks of recognition quickly concealed and then evasive. These were her compatriots, her homegrown, armed with work: builders, florists, loaders, drivers; playing it sly so as not to let on to any shared objective, and instead just, just, just: just there to take orders. They were the same as back home but with less whistling, and no begging.”)
******Please keep the writing simple! this must look like my own writing******