soapstone close reading and tabbing. reading slowly and carefully reading with a pen, a notebook,...
TRANSCRIPT
SOAPSTone
Close Reading and Tabbing
Reading slowly and carefully Reading with a pen, a notebook, tabs, high
lighters Keeping track of questions you may have Reading the text as a whole vs. looking for
specific elements of the text Analyzing your own thoughts, writing, questions
about the text in order to construct patterns, devise themes, and establish SOAPSTone.
Close Reading
Passive readers look at a book with the TV. on, controller in one hand, cellphone in the other while checking Instagram, Tweeting, and taking a nap
Active readers underline key passages, circle words or concepts they do not understand, and make connections with literature they have read as well as their own realities
ANNOTATE! Passive Vs Active
Observe the interior of the passage. Find patterns and statements or objects that repeat
Write down the names of characters and draw arrows to illustrate how those characters are related and how they move through the text.
Use the margins and inside covers for your maps and drawings
Analyze your thoughts and drawings-look for more information in the reading to add depth to what you understand and resolve that which you don’t understand
Look for Patterns
What metaphor does Busta Rhymes repeat? Animal Metaphors! A Pattern of metaphors is called a CONCEIT! You just became a literary genius!
For Example…
S)SpeakerO)OccasionA) AudienceP) PurposeS) SubjectT)one
Acronym
The speaker is the voice that tells the story.
Although the Speaker is telling the story, he may NOT be the protagonist
Speaker
Tyler DurdenFromFight Club
Is the voice of the text a fictional character?
How does the speaker tell the story?
What type of language does the speaker use?
How does the speaker influence the reader to think a certain away about the events in the text?
To Consider…
Does the subject or the voice describing the subject change---or shift at all during the
story?
Those shifts are VERY important! They are often overlooked textual elements that
speak to a characters growth and development.
FINALLY!!!
The occasion relates to the time and place in which the text is set. The reader NEEDS to understand the text in context-meaning the situation that led the writer to write his text. Understand that this component HAS to be present. Literature does not exist in a vacuum, it is a product of a writer living in a very certain and very important environment.
Occasion
Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
What elements contribute to making the occasion?
Modernity and Zeitgeist
Keep in mind…
The way in which you perceive a text is almost COMPLETELY dependent upon your cultural zeitgeist.
AND
The way in which past and future audiences perceive meaning in a text is dependent on their cultural zeitgeist
JUST LIKE
The zeitgesit for the author almost COMPLETELY structured and informed his work
What does that mean for us, the readers??? When we find some element of a text significant it is because some aspect of our cultural zeitgeist motivates us to think so!
Based on the language, subject matter, and content-what is the target group of readers? Who is the author attending to address?
Understanding audience is key to gaining insight as to the author’s purpose in writing a text. You must understand that for a text to create real change then it must get into the hands of those who can truly make that change.
You should also note who the text is not intended for…
Audience
Who is the intended audience?
What techniques are used to pique the interests of the targeted audience?
Who isn’t the intended audience?
How can you tell?
What does the artist have to gain by making this particular song for his audience?
Blackalicious-Alphabet Aerobics
Who is the intended audience?
What techniques are used to ‘arouse’ the interests of the targeted audience?
Who isn’t the intended audience?
How can you tell?
What does the artist have to gain by making this particular song for his audience?
Watagatapitusberry
An author’s use of comedic elements can enhance your understanding of who he is targeting as his intended
audience…
Do not Underestimate the Significance of Comedy!!!
Many people think or assume comedy is an emotional process-it is not!
Comedy is an intellectual process that draws from deeply-rooted psychological traits… Comedy is UNIVERSAL!
Why do we laugh?
What do comedy and tragedy have in common?
How do we discuss comedy?
Understanding WHY we laugh (or don’t) tells us a lot about us as an audience!
Understanding WHY other audiences laugh (or don’t) tells us a lot about
them!
There are several “levels” of comedy-
we call this The Comedic Ladder
Low Comedy is full of-Dirty jokes, gestures, scatological humor (Netflix Clip), and sexual overtones
-Low comedy focuses on exaggerating or understating physical features. (Example from President’s Correspondence Dinner:
Jimmy Kimmel: Mr. President, you may want to cover your ears for this next joke-if that is humanly possible.”
-Slapstick, prop comedy, collisions and physical comedy
1. Low Comedy
A Farce, or something that can be considered farcical:
-Is full of coincidences, mistimings, and mistaken identity
-Contains characters are “puppets of fate”-twins, born to the wrong class, unable to marry, too poor or too rich
-May feature characters that have lost there identity due to some accident of fate
2. Farce
A Comedy of Manners focuses on witty, clever speech-typically among the upper class or rich. Insults, put-downs are traded between cliques and groups.
In particular, outsiders are viewed as witless and are deemed made to feel ashamed or embarrassed that they do not possess the attributes of the “In-Class”
3. Comedy of Manners
Characters engaged in a Comedy of Ideas typically argue about politics, Religion, sex, marriage and culture (art/music/literature).
They use witty, clever language to mock or demean their opponents.
4. Comedy of Ideas
BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ANY CUES THAT
HINT AT THE AUTHOR’S INTENDED AUDIENCE! Why?
Soooo
Understanding the audience is one key in figuring out the author’s intended message. For example, knowing that Douglass was writing to Abolitionists about the
philosophical and humanitarian crimes associated with slavery; Faulkner was writing to showcase the
relationship with between actual human thought and literature; Shakespeare was writing in order to ask
questions about existence that had never been asked before; Kurt Vonnegut wrote to illustrate the goodness of humanity; O’Brien wrote to tell us a “true war story”; Spiegelman wrote to explicate his personal and familial
understanding of the Holocaust…
Understanding Audience
Knowing an audience allows to access these emerging themes in literature-without an
audience these great truths would vanish in the wind
Keep in mind that an author might use Low Comedy in order to illustrate a philosophical, academic, or intellectual point
Or, vice versa…
An author might depict characters normally associated with farce or low comedy engaged in a Comedy of Ideas.
It’s Tricky! (Tricky Tricky Tricky)
After you consider the occasion, audience, and speaker you can start to make assertions about what the author intended his work to do.
What logic, thesis, and/or arguments are buried within the text?
What would the author want you to do the second after you finish reading his book?
Purpose
To establish purpose, an author uses a blend of
rhetorical techniques that rely on 3 elements of
rhetoric
The intent to build up the credibility of the speaker
so that you trust him more. Ethos heavily relies on REPUTATION and on
attacking the reputations of rivals.
Elements of Rhetoric: Ethos
The passionate and emotional elements of an
argument. This type of argument is supposed to
inspire you to feel for and identify with the
speaker.
Elements of Rhetoric: Pathos
The logical aspect of an argument meant
to appeal to your sense of reason.
Elements of Rhetoric: Logos
Ethos Logos Pathos
Arguments From Al Pacino’s Devil’s Advocate Speech
The general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text.
How do you know this? How has the subject been depicted? Why would the author choose to present this topic?In what style or format has the subject been presented?Why/how does the presentation of the text craft and form the subject?
Subject
This Is Just To Say
I have eatenthe plumsthat were in the icebox
and whichyou were probablySavingfor breakfast
Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold
by William Carlos Williams
Chapter 1: That Despair is the Sickness Unto DeathA. Despair is a Sickness in the Spirit, in the Self, and So It May Assume a Triple Form: in Despair at Not Being
Conscious of Having a Self (Despair Improperly So Called); in Despair at Not Willing to Be Oneself; in Despair at Willing to Be Oneself.
Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its
own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not
the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite
and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a
relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self.
In the relation between two, the relation is the third term as a negative unity, and the two relate themselves to the
relation, and in the relation to the relation; such a relation is that between soul and body, when man is regarded as
soul. If on the contrary the relation relates itself to its own self, the relation is then the positive third term, and this is
the self.
Such a relation which relates itself to its own self (that is to say, a self) must either have constituted itself or have
been constituted by another.
If this relation which relates itself to its own self is constituted by another, the relation doubtless is the third term,
but this relation (the third term) is in turn a relation relating itself to that which constituted the whole relation.
From Chapter 1 of Sören Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death
The subject of literature can be extremely easy to spot, understand, and discuss…
The subject of literature can be incredibly difficult (impossible?) to spot, understand and discuss…
The key is to understand that the author has intentionally buried his subject or intentionally
placed his subject front and center-both strategies pertaining to subject are important elements in
discussing literature
Got All That?
Tone refers to the attitude of the author as expressed
in his text. To track tone one must track the specific word choice used by the narrator
or speaker within a text.
Tone
We examine the types of words (diction), word arrangements, and techniques
involving the manipulation of the sound and meaning of words because…THESE
TECHNIQUES ARE ALL INTENTIONAL AND ALL SERVE A PURPOSE IN THE TEXT!
Does the author use….
Repetition of sounds at the beginning of a string of words
(as in a tongue twister)
Alliteration?
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.”
What is the effect of the alliteration in Macbeth?
Macbeth (Act 4, scene 1)
Reference to a previous text-typically biblical… But an allusion can simply be a reference to any previously existing text, song, speech, or document…
In this case, the song from Harry Potter is a lengthy allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Allusion
Combinations of sounds and words that contain harsh consonant sounds (K, P, Q, P) and an absence of “soothing” vowel and consonant sounds (O, S, L, M). Also used in music…
Throw a bag of plates, silverware, and glass cups down some stairs and VOILA! You will have cacophony.
Cacophony?
Dillinger Escape Plan “43% Burnt”
What is the effect of the Cacophony in…
When something or some action is named for or after the sound it makes…
BuzzHiss
BelchBang Clang
Pop “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (slogan of
Alka Seltzer, U.S.)
Onomatopoeia?
What is the Intended Effect of Onomatopoeia?
Under what Circumstance should a writer use
Onomatopoeia?
?
ZZZZZZZZZ
What about here?
I heard a Fly buzz - when I diedI heard a Fly buzz - when I died -The Stillness in the RoomWas like the Stillness in the Air -Between the Heaves of Storm -
The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -And Breaths were gathering firmFor that last Onset - when the KingBe witnessed - in the Room -
I willed my Keepsakes - Signed awayWhat portion of me beAssignable - and then it wasThere interposed a Fly -
With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -Between the light - and me -And then the Windows failed - and thenI could not see to see -
- BY EMILY DICKINSON
Also, Look at syntax (sentence structure). Does the author use…
The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.
‘And we could have all this,’ she said. ‘And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.’
‘What did you say?’‘I said we could have everything. We can have everything.’‘No, we can’t.’‘We can have the whole world.’‘No, we can’t.’‘We can go everywhere.’‘No, we can’t. It isn’t ours any more.’
Short Sentences? (Note the Dialogue from the Second
Speaker Who is a Man)
From Ernest Hemmingway’s Hills Like White Elephants
“There was a wisteria vine blooming for the second time that summer on a wooden trellis before one window, into which sparrows came now and then in random gusts, making a dry vivid dusty sound before going away: and opposite Quentin, Miss Coldfield in the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three years now, whether for sister, father, or nothusband noone knew, sitting so bolt upright in the straight hard chair that was so tall for her that her legs hung straight and rigid as if she had iron shinbones and ankles, clear of the floor with that air of impotent and static rage like children’s feet, and talking in that grim haggard amazed voice until at last listening would renege and hearing-sense self-confound and the long-dead object of her impotent yet indomitable frustration would appear, as though by outraged recapitulation evoked, quiet inattentive and harmless, out of the binding and dreamy and victorious dust.”
Long sentences? (From Absolom, Absalom! By William Faulkner)
A writing style intended to replicate the pattern of human thought-often
characterized by leaps in logic, a lack of punctuation,
and vivid imagery
Stream of consciousness?
He went down into the water again and fought and fought and then came up with his belly jumping and his throat aching. And all the time that he was under the water fighting with only one arm to get back he was having conversation with himself about how this thing couldn't possibly happen to him only it had. So they cut my arm off. How am I going to work now? They don't think of that. They don't think of anything but doing it their own way. Just another guy with a hole in his arm let's cut it off what do you say boys? Sure cut the guy's arm off. It takes a lot of work and a lot of money to fix up a guy's arm. This is a war and war is hell and what the hell and so to hell with it. Come on boys watch this. Pretty slick hey? He's down in bed and can't say anything and it's his tough luck and we're tired and this is a stinking war anyhow so let's cut the damn thing off and be done with it.
From Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun
Keep track of figurative language. Are similes and metaphors employed? Does the other take advantage of imagery? If so, how would you describe the images used? Ghastly? Pastoral? Soothing?