Textual Analysis Exercise PDF

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TEXTUAL ANALYSIS EXERCISE (500-700 words)

The FINAL TAE exercise is graded as pass/no pass though it will show up on Canvas as Complete/Incomplete. A Pass can be a High Pass, Low Pass, Pass or No Pass. If you were to ask me for a numerical equivalent, a High Pass is a 100, Pass is an 85, Low Pass is 75 and a No Pass is zero. The Final Interpretive Exercise will be evaluated in this way as well You will be receiving Letter grades as per Grading rubric for your four analytical essays. TEXT

Daniel Gilbert, “Immune to Reality”: 141-150. INSTRUCTIONS

Once you have finished reading Gilbert’s essay, carefully reread the passages reproduced below. Take notes as you do so, asking yourself the following questions in particular: What question or problem is this passage exploring? What are its KEY TERMS? Its themes? Its examples? What broader implications might the ideas contained in the passage have for the text as a whole? Once you have taken thorough notes on each passage, produce AT LEAST TWO substantive paragraphs of at least 250 words each. Each paragraph should consider (and quote from) ONE of the selected passages, ANALYZING the ideas you encountered while avoiding SUMMARY. ➢ ANALYSIS explores and explains; it says something new. It requires that we consider implications, that we interpret the language and structure of a text. Analysis looks for patterns, dissects concepts, and explores (rather than merely presenting) evidence. It asks (and answers!) HOW and WHY questions. ➢ SUMMARY reports on what has already been said. It generally asks and answers WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO questions. Summary adds nothing new to the conversation. To focus your writing, begin by choosing one KEY TERM that you think matters for the passage, and incorporate it into your topic sentence. Some examples of KEY TERMS one encounters while reading [Immune to Reality] include: [cooking of facts and conspiracy PASSAGES

When we cook facts, we are similarly unaware of why we are doing it, and this turns out to be a good thing because deliberate attempts to generate positive views ("There must be something good about bankruptcy, and I'm not leaving this chair until I discover it") contain the seeds of their own destruction. Volunteers in one study listened to Stravinsky's

Some were told to listen to the music, and others were told to listen to the music while consciously trying to be happy. At the end of the interlude, the volunteers who had tried to be happy were.in a worse mood than were the volunteers who had simply listened to the music. Why? Two reasons. First, we may be able deliberately to generate positive views of our own experiences if we close our eyes, sit very still, and do nothing else,8 but research suggests that if we become even slightly distracted, these deliberate attempts tend to backfire and we end up feeling worse than we did before. 9 Second, deliberate attempts to cook the facts are so transparent that they make us feel cheap. Sure, we want to believe that we're better off without the fiancée who left us standing at the altar, and we will feel better as soon as we begin to discover facts that support this conclusion ("She was never really right for me, was she, Mom?"), but the process by which we discover those facts must feel like a discovery and not like a snow job. If we see ourselves cooking the facts ("If I phrase the question just this way and ask nobody but Mom, I stand a pretty good chance of having my favored conclusion confirmed"), then the jig is up and self-deluded joins jilted in our list of pitiful qualities. For positive views to be credible, they must be based on facts that we believe we have come upon honestly. We accomplish this by unconsciously cooking the facts and then consciously consuming them. The diner is in the dining room, but the chef is in the basement. The benefit of all this unconscious cookery is that it works, but the cost is that it makes us strangers to ourselves (Gilbert, 144) Rite of Spring7.

[Idea-rich passage 2]

The eye and the brain are conspirators, and like most conspiracies, theirs is negotiated behind closed doors, in the backroom, outside of our awareness. Because we do not realize that we have generated a positive view of our current experience, we do not realize that we will do so again in the future. Not only does our naivete cause us to overestimate the intensity and duration of our distress in the face of future adversity, but it also leads us to take actions that may undermine the conspiracy. We are more likely to generate a positive and credible view of the action than inaction, of a painful experience than of an annoying experience, of an unpleasant situation that we cannot escape than of one we can. And yet, we rarely choose action over inaction, pain over annoyance, and commitment over freedom. The processes by which we generate positive views are many, we pay more attention to favorable information, we surround ourselves with those who provide it, and we accept it uncritically. These tendencies make it easy for us to explain unpleasant experiences in ways that exonerate us and make us feel better. The price we pay for our irrepressible explanatory urge is that we often spoil our most pleasant experiences

by

making

good

sense

of

them.

FORMAT

You must proofread carefully. Quotations should be carefully transcribed, punctuated, and attributed. For bibliographic conventions, use MLA style. Use 1.0-inch margins on all sides, doublespacing, and twelve-point Times New Roman font. Number all pages. Your submission should have your name, the date, and course information on the first page. Submit your work via Canvas in either .docx or .pdf format. Google docs and .pages files are not acceptable. Email submissions are not acceptable. SUCCESSFUL CLOSE-READING PARAGRAPH CHECKLIST

Your close-reading paragraphs should… □

□

Begin with a topic sentence that identifies and defines a KEY TERM from the passage. A KEY TERM is a word or phrase that explores and explains HOW something works; it is NOT an example, but an idea that helps us think more carefully about examples. Identify and quote AT LEAST TWO textual moments that relate to your KEY TERM

□

Analyze your quoted moments, explaining how they help us better understand your KEY TERM

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Conclude by discussing what your analysis teaches us about the passage and its complexities… □ …and by discussing how the passage relates to, furthers, and/or complicates the author’s overall argument Your close-reading paragraphs should NOT… □

Summarize the passage (i.e., report what is said without adding anything new) at length □ Attempt to address EVERYTHING in the passage □ □

Reference specific parts of the author’s essay that are not in the passage

Reference non-textual examples (i.e., relate something you find in the text to something not in it) □ Rely on factual quotations (i.e., quotations that merely report facts or examples; these will feel like they could be said by anyone rather than only the author themself)...