TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Thesis and Support

Page length: 4 typed, double-spaced pages with 1” margins and 12-pt font
Grade value: 15% of total grade in class

Topic: In your third writing project, you will be analyzing a movie. Through your analysis, you will be exploring and supporting a unique claim (controlling idea, thesis statement) related to the topic of sustainability. Your analysis should be based on your own observation and critical viewing of the text, with specific references to the text as your primary evidence of support. This evidence will be presented via the use of direct quotation, paraphrase, and summary along with your critical analysis and explanation of the significance of the evidence.

To supplement your analysis of the text (movie), you will need to find one outside source (no more than ten years old) from the Internet or library that will address how our course theme of sustainability is portrayed in the movie and/or how the source supports your unique controlling idea. This supplemental source should provide no more than 20% of the evidence in your essay.

Movie Selection: You may choose any movie that lends itself to the discussion of sustainability. Some suggestions, which I will try to make available on our Blackboard course site (and which are available for lending through many public libraries) include:

• Super Size Me
• Food, Inc.
• Flow: For Love of Water
• No Impact Man: The Documentary

These are each documentary films; however, you may choose a movie that is not a documentary.

What is a textual analysis? When we do textual analysis, we make an educated guess about the most likely interpretations that might be made of that text. The goal of textual analysis is to understand what the text says and what it means. The point of this essay is to express your analysis of the movie – the meaning you gleaned from the movie from the evidence provided, and that analysis should be presented as a focused point you wish to make and to support about what the movie means and/or says. You will develop a thesis, or central idea, about your analysis of the movie. Develop a specific point that is sufficiently focused so you can discuss it in detail and in-depth using specific examples from the movie itself and examples from your supplemental research source.

First, you will present evidence of your analysis of the text through direct quotes, paraphrased excerpts, and summaries to help you convey your point. Second, you will use your supplemental source to help you support your point.

Criteria for Evaluation: Your analysis of the movie will be based on particular criteria you evaluate through the process of identifying each criterion, finding evidence for each criterion, and judging the evidence of each criterion to make your interpretations. Some common criteria for analyzing movies include:

• Genre and Authors – what genre is the film, what other work might it be connected to, who made the film and why, what can we tell about its creators, how does it fit with the director’s other work, etc.?
• Theme and Audience – what is the film’s theme or dominant message, who is the target audience, how does it address the audience, will audience members react in different ways –how, etc.?
• Socio-Cultural Context – What is the film’s socio-cultural context, was it made for a specific culture, was it made for a specific reason, does it represent a specific part of society?
• Film Language – how is meaning created with camera shots and movement, how is meaning created by lighting and color, how is meaning created by sound and music, how is meaning created by location and set, does the film use special effects?
• Narrative – does the film use symbols or stories to make its points, what types of people are featured in the film and why, how are people and places used to connect the audience to the movie, who is telling the “story,” what is the style of the dialogue, what kind of rapport does the narrator establish with the audience?
• Ideology and Values – are there any moral assumptions presented, what cultural values are presented in the film, are there any ethnic values presented, gender values?, religious values?, racial values?, etc.
Structure: The assignment will have several parts:

1. The introduction will get reader interest, mention the name of your text (movie), and present your thesis statement. To get reader interest, you might ask a series of questions, provide an interesting quotation, use an anecdote, startle the readers with surprising remarks or facts, define an important concept, or convince the readers that your subject applies to them in some way. After you have accomplished getting the reader interested, then you can provide your thesis.
2. A summary will make up the next part of your essay. Write the summary in your own words and include the movie’s central idea and supporting points. Keep in mind that the summary is a shortened version of what the writer/director said.
3. Several supporting paragraphs that provide evidence about specific critical criterion and how the text (movie) uses this criterion to send a message about the topic of sustainability. After each topic sentence, present details and examples from the text (movie) that support the idea in the topic sentence. Incorporate outside source material where you feel it is appropriate and relevant; cite it correctly in the text of your essay.
4. A conclusion that keeps your readers interested in your topic after they are finished reading.
5. A Works Cited page that lists each source (both the primary and secondary source) used in your essay.

Acknowledging Sources: When you use information from other sources and include it in your writing (either in your own words or paraphrased), you must include the source information. We will discuss this further in class. The basic information that must be provided includes the author(s) of the source, the title, the date of publication, and page numbers. For this paper, your only two sources should be the movie and the secondary source you have chosen.

Prewriting Activities:

• View the movie, preferably twice. The first time, just watch it. The second time, jot down ideas about the criteria mentioned previously. Turn the sound off at times to pay closer attention to the visual part of the text.
• Read through your notes and consider what evidence is in the film to support some of the criteria. Make some judgments about those criteria based on the evidence you found.
• Determine what your overall interpretation is of the film, and draft a working thesis statement.
• Outline your plan for supporting that thesis statement with possible topic sentences that state your specific opinion about the criteria you intend to mention as well as the supporting evidence you believe will help you to help your readers understand your perceptions.
• Once you have your working thesis statement and an outline, consider what other source may supplement what you have to say.

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