How to help a ninth grader having trouble with textual analysis?
October 16, 2015 8:02 AM Subscribe
Asking for a colleague. A student is struggling to keep up with the standards of ninth grade English because the teachers are asking him to do in-depth textual analysis. His parents want a book that might help him to improve this skill at home. They are also considering other options but have asked me to research this one. I haven't met the student. Information from American education professionals would be most helpful. Thank you!
"The Art of Rhetorical Criticism", maybe. Depends on what the student is struggling with.
It's a game. Read the book, decide on some hidden meaning to pretend to find in the text, and use quotes from the book to support that hidden meaning while showing a basic understanding of the text.
The game is to make a serious argument for the most ridiculous ideas, while completing the letter of the assignment.
Example paper topics:
"Odysseus was a Christ figure"
"Faulkner advocated Communism"
"Romeo and Juliet was an allegory of Plato's allegory of the cave"
"Horatio was a figment of Hamlet's imagination"
Mix in properly-cited quotes from the postmodernist essay generator website to really make it really intellectual, bizarre, and difficult to parse.
Basically, play the game of finding hidden meanings to get A's while making fun of the assignment.
Worked for me.
posted by sninctown at 3:14 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's a game. Read the book, decide on some hidden meaning to pretend to find in the text, and use quotes from the book to support that hidden meaning while showing a basic understanding of the text.
The game is to make a serious argument for the most ridiculous ideas, while completing the letter of the assignment.
Example paper topics:
"Odysseus was a Christ figure"
"Faulkner advocated Communism"
"Romeo and Juliet was an allegory of Plato's allegory of the cave"
"Horatio was a figment of Hamlet's imagination"
Mix in properly-cited quotes from the postmodernist essay generator website to really make it really intellectual, bizarre, and difficult to parse.
Basically, play the game of finding hidden meanings to get A's while making fun of the assignment.
Worked for me.
posted by sninctown at 3:14 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure what kind of "deep textual analysis" you are talking about but one exercise that I think can be helpful is a kind of variation on Mad Libs. Take a passage that you are looking to analyze and identify, say, all the adjectives. Pick one out and think about why it was chosen. What other words could the author have chosen? Why did the author choose this one, then? What's different about your reaction to the text when you change some of the words to different words that have the same or similar meanings?
A lot of it is understanding that writers choose words with purpose, and then trying to find patterns that may suggest what that purpose could be.
posted by synecdoche at 4:45 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
A lot of it is understanding that writers choose words with purpose, and then trying to find patterns that may suggest what that purpose could be.
posted by synecdoche at 4:45 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've recommended How to Read Literature Like a Professor to college freshmen, but it's very clear and easily accessible to younger readers as well, IMHO. It's a very straightfoward look at "de-coding" some common themes/symbolism and does a very good job modeling literary analysis.
posted by TwoStride at 7:00 PM on October 16, 2015
posted by TwoStride at 7:00 PM on October 16, 2015
I'd like to second How to Read...Professor. Very enjoyable, easy book to read and added a ton of insight to my reading.
posted by SLC Mom at 7:25 PM on October 16, 2015
posted by SLC Mom at 7:25 PM on October 16, 2015
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posted by parmanparman at 12:46 PM on October 16, 2015