One thing that we need to do more of as writers is to spend more time writing out our own ideas. As I reflect on our time together, the one thing that we need to practice the most is including our own voices and ideas more into the text.
Most of us are still struggling with the concept of writing from sources. That "from" is neglected in our writing. We are not solely writing "about" sources; we are using sources to inspire our own ideas. Too often we fall back to simply restating what the authors have already said.
If all we are doing is restating, then we are being too obvious and missing the point. Our goal for the final four weeks (7, 8, 9 & 10) is to write, write, write! But, we are going to write with purpose. We are going to write to make our own ideas sharper, and to illuminate ideas beyond what anyone who has read a text might not get from their own reading!
Writer to writer, the biggest failure of a piece of writing is that it doesn't attempt to take the ideas already in the world (already written and read) and further them. The biggest failure when responding to a text -- whether an essay, a film, a song, a painting -- is to not go beyond restating what the text already explicitly states. We are not computers; we are not writing robots!
Our goal in using sources is to spend most of the writing, not on restatement of the text, but on why and what we see as significant from that text. What has the text taught you as a reader by making you think? What has the text taught you that is beyond what is already on the page?
With this goal in mind, here are the exercises that we will do today in class. (The exercises that we don't get to, you can still use.):
Thinking/ Writing Activities
Writing Activity 1 // Anticipate Questions (Writing By Thinking about GP):
Have faith in your own intelligence. Ask yourself what kind of questions you would ask over the given material. Chances are that at least some of your questions when answered by you can be considered analysis. If you can anticipate questions readers will have and answer them, then the more your reader will keep following you.
- What questions would you ask about the song and its lyrics based on the guiding principle used?
- As an example, using the following Guiding Principle to ask questions of Bob Dylan’s 1975 folk classic, “Hurricane.” Based on the guiding principle, what questions might you want to pose on Dylan’s song?
The sociologist R. Serge Denisoff was among those who observed that the majority of protest songs of the 1930s and 1940s differed from those of the next generation. He called the earlier songs ‘‘magnetic,’’ expressing collective feelings of unity and ideological power in a time of general economic depression. By contrast, he believed that the majority of the protest songs of the 1960s, a time of middle-class affluence, were ‘‘rhetorical,’’ expressing individual feelings of formless discontent with particular issues.
(Dunlap, 550)
- After we discuss some questions to anticipate for Dylan's song, I'd like you to spend 15-20 minutes on your own essay.
- First, come up with two to three questions a reader might ask about your song lyrics based on your guiding principle.
- Second, answer each of the questions -- if you do this, you are practicing analysis!!!
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Guiding Principle Practices: shift what you say according to different guiding principles…which lines become more relevant? Here are some (but not all) examples of different topics for which one might find a guiding principle. For each topic and its guiding principle, each would shift what you discuss on your subject.
- racial ills of society
- feminism in language
- originality of the language's structure
- originality of how the subject is described/ overuse of common phrases
- use of a new metaphor/ old metaphor
- the point of view on the topic (Dylan and folk music article)
- how does the song discuss a historical "fact"
You may find a guiding principle from an outside source that discusses on of the above subjects, or you may be RISKY (that's good) and make your own.
Writing Activity 2 // Create Your Own! A Confident Writer Might Not Need To Borrow a Guiding Principle (How do you think Guiding Principles become GPs?!?)
- Guiding Principles can be original thesis statements on a subject, they don’t have to take someone else’s ideas and try to apply them to a new subject!
- A self-created guiding principle/thesis statement is one that makes a larger claim about subject text that is not explicitly already stated.
- Another way to look at your Guiding Principle is that is is a tool that allows us to see the subject in a new way; it is a tool that allows us to learn about the craft of the subject….
o Use your intuition --> learned to want to think more deeply about your text. Take the risk and look like a donkey! For instance, if you are listening to a song and you have a thought that, wow, this song uses a lot of metaphor, and as we said, start to explain what you think the main metaphor is, etc.
WA 2.1 // Metaphorical Value of the Lyrics
- What is the metaphor used? What’s being compared to what? (Love is a Battlefield à how so, Pat Benatar!)
- Why this metaphor? Does this seem appropriate, and how? Explain.
- Is this a different view than others have taken on the subject? (Again, love is a battlefield – battlefields are violent, they involve two sides, people die or lose parts of themselves. No one really wins or loses, but there is pain….)
- How much of the song is metaphor? Is it one or two lines, or is the whole song a metaphor? Which line? What does the line mean, in your words?
- Again, why this metaphor? How fresh or stale is this metaphor? Have other artists used the same metaphor before?
WA 2.2The Literal Argument
- What have other writers said on the subject – in this case, song/song writers?
- Is this a conventional argument – one that many have made – or is it new? Be realistic, as many songs make the same arguments over and over.
- If the argument is not new, then what about the song makes it so popular?
- What can someone learn from reading/listening to the lyrics?
- In other words, what value does this song have to humanity? What is the purpose of the song, and how does it accomplish its goal through its argument?
WA 2.3 The Emotional argument of the lyrics
- What is the common expected emotional reaction?
- What in the song's lyrics indicates how the listener is to emotionally react? Certain phrases, certain lines…which ones?
- Is this emotion often used in this genre of music? (For instance, another Tupac Song, “Dear Mama,” could make one tear up!)
- What is so interesting* (or significant) about which emotion the song provokes? (
- For example, I could write about how unlike the stereotype of rap “Dear Mama” is in terms of its emotional argument. Where anger is often directed outward, the singer actually blames himself and looks angrily at himself…)
*Your own reasons and logical explanations need to be clarified. Explain how you see the song as relevant to society...All of the questions posed, when answered thoughtfully, can be considered analytical writing!
