{"id":9889,"date":"2023-03-21T19:07:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T19:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/questions\/comparative-explication-paper-assignment-on-the-book-make-your-home-among-strangers\/"},"modified":"2023-03-21T19:07:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T19:07:20","slug":"comparative-explication-paper-assignment-on-the-book-make-your-home-among-strangers","status":"publish","type":"questions","link":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/questions\/comparative-explication-paper-assignment-on-the-book-make-your-home-among-strangers\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparative Explication Paper Assignment on the book Make your home Among Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"
the two passages you need to compare:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“Canals zigzag across the city I used to call home. Those lines of murky water still run beside and under <\/div>\n
expressways, now choked by whorls of algae-mostly Hydrilla, a well-known invasive, though that’s likely the only <\/div>\n
algae I ever saw growing up in Miami.” (chapter 1, page 1)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
” Skirting the edges of the island on which both my parents were born- the island both even now still think as <\/div>\n
home- are some of the most pristine and healthy coral reef systems in existence today.” (chapter 36, page 381)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Description:<\/p>\n

An explication paper engages significant literary passages in order to advance a thesis. For this paper<\/div>\n
you will choose 2 passages to compare. You may choose 2 from one of the texts we\u2019ve read or one each<\/div>\n
from two texts. The paper should be about 5-7 pages long, plus an additional works cited page. There<\/div>\n
must be quotations; these must be formatted according to MLA style (consult a writing handbook or<\/div>\n
the Purdue Online Writing Lab for details). Also\u2014and this is perhaps the crucial bit\u2014there should be a<\/div>\n
minimum of 2 to 2.5 lines of analysis for each line of quoted text, not each instance of quotation. If you<\/div>\n
quote three lines of a poem, for example, then you should have at least 6 to 8 lines of commentary.<\/div>\n
Though explication is usually associated with Formalism\/New Criticism, it is a vital part of any wellrounded reading analysis. You should bring to bear all the theoretical approaches you find helpful to<\/div>\n
your reading, but you need not mention them by name.<\/div>\n
Helpful tips:<\/div>\n
Your introduction must conclude with a thesis, one that makes an arguable claim about the text under<\/div>\n
consideration. By \u201carguable claim\u201d I mean a claim that goes beyond summary or paraphrase, and that<\/div>\n
includes within it an explanation of why anyone should care.<\/div>\n
We would argue . . . that the best interpretations do in fact agree, disagree, or both\u2014that instead<\/div>\n
of being offered solo, the best interpretations take strong stands relative to other<\/div>\n
interpretations. In fact, there would be no reason to offer an interpretation of a work of<\/div>\n
literature or art unless you were responding to the interpretations or possible interpretations of<\/div>\n
others. Even when you point out features or qualities of an artistic work that others have not<\/div>\n
noticed, you are implicitly disagreeing with what those interpreters have said by pointing out that<\/div>\n
they missed or overlooked something that, in your view, is important. In any effective <\/div>\n
interpretation then, you need to not only state what you yourself take the work of art to mean,<\/div>\n
but to do so relative to the interpretations of other readers\u2014be they professional scholars,<\/div>\n
teachers, classmates, or even hypothetical readers (as in, \u201cAlthough some readers might think<\/div>\n
this poem is about _______, it is in fact about _____\u201d). (Graff and Birkenstein 53)<\/div>\n
Thesis statements should also govern the organization of your paper. Not in a mechanical way (\u201cthis<\/div>\n
novel has three interesting ideas,\u201d followed by 3 paragraphs, one devoted to each idea)! Instead, each<\/div>\n
subsequent paragraph should begin with a main point, or topic sentence, that supports the thesis in<\/div>\n
some way. Like your thesis statement, topic sentences should be claims about meaning and<\/div>\n
significance, not descriptions of the text.<\/div>\n
Works Cited<\/div>\n
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say\/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New<\/div>\n
York: Norton, 2006.<\/div>\n
A Partial List of Things to Cover When Interpreting a Literary Passage<\/div>\n
\u2022 Who speaks? Is it the narrator in a novel, or a persona standing in for the poet? a character?<\/div>\n
\u2022 What is the tone of the passage? Rueful? sardonic? arch? sarcastic? passionate? bored?<\/div>\n
judgmental? How can you tell?<\/div>\n
\u2022 What is the diction of the passage? Formal? colloquial? Is it in dialect?<\/div>\n
\u2022 Look at the passage\u2019s syntax. Is it well-ordered and balanced? Frenzied? Is the passage<\/div>\n
noticeably ungrammatical? What is the effect of this choice?<\/div>\n
\u2022 Look at the shape of the words in your passage. Does anything jump out at you? Are syllables<\/div>\n
consistently added or omitted? Does the speaker transpose letters frequently?<\/div>\n
\u2022 Look at the shape of the sentence. Are its parts parallel in structure? Does the parallel structure<\/div>\n
represent agreement or antithesis? Are there notable deviations from conventional word<\/div>\n
order? Is there noticeable repetition? Alliteration, assonance?<\/div>\n
\u2022 Now think of the meaning of the words and consider them as potential tropes. (Irony,<\/div>\n
metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the two passages you need to compare: “Canals zigzag across the city I used to call home. Those lines of murky water still run beside and under  expressways, now choked by whorls of algae-mostly Hydrilla, a well-known invasive, though that’s likely the only  algae I ever saw growing up in Miami.” (chapter 1, page 1) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"disciplines":[186],"paper_types":[],"tagged":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/9889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/questions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/9889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=9889"},{"taxonomy":"paper_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper_types?post=9889"},{"taxonomy":"tagged","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tagged?post=9889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}