Textual Analysis on the short story “Edge of the World” by Souvankham Thammavongsa

In this assignment, the Textual Analysis, you will step outside of your own life to closely read and analyze the work of a writer: a text. This assignment gives you the opportunity to practice a set of skills that you will repeat over your Babson career and beyond: closely reading a text; making meaning of an aspect of that text through analysis; writing for a specific audience using conventions of a genre; and reflecting on your process and work.

The first time we read a text, we often focus on the “what”: What does this text say? What do I think it means? What do I imagine the author meant to convey? These are great questions, and great starting points for analysis. However, for this assignment, I’m asking you to go beyond the “what” and use our new skills of radical noticing to consider the “how”: How does the author convey meaning? How is this text constructed (of what parts)? 

Textual analysis is a process of deconstructing a text in order to make meaning. Eventually, through this process of deconstruction, you will develop answers to the question ”So what?” and attempt to shape those answers into an argument for a certain reading of the text, written for a specific audience.

Using the skills we have been practicing in our course, including closely reading a text, radical noticing, and meaning-making, write a 1100 – 1400-word essay analyzing an aspect of one of our Project 2 course texts. Your audience is your Writing Across Context peers and your professor.

You will be evaluated on how well you 1) make meaning of an aspect of the text through analysis, and 2) write for a specific audience using the conventions of the analysis genre.