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)
” Skirting the edges of the island on which both my parents were born- the island both even now still think as
home- are some of the most pristine and healthy coral reef systems in existence today.” (chapter 36, page 381)
Description:
An explication paper engages significant literary passages in order to advance a thesis. For this paper
you will choose 2 passages to compare. You may choose 2 from one of the texts we’ve read or one each
from two texts. The paper should be about 5-7 pages long, plus an additional works cited page. There
must be quotations; these must be formatted according to MLA style (consult a writing handbook or
the Purdue Online Writing Lab for details). Also—and this is perhaps the crucial bit—there should be a
minimum of 2 to 2.5 lines of analysis for each line of quoted text, not each instance of quotation. If you
quote three lines of a poem, for example, then you should have at least 6 to 8 lines of commentary.
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
your reading, but you need not mention them by name.
Helpful tips:
Your introduction must conclude with a thesis, one that makes an arguable claim about the text under
consideration. By “arguable claim” I mean a claim that goes beyond summary or paraphrase, and that
includes within it an explanation of why anyone should care.
We would argue . . . that the best interpretations do in fact agree, disagree, or both—that instead
of being offered solo, the best interpretations take strong stands relative to other
interpretations. In fact, there would be no reason to offer an interpretation of a work of
literature or art unless you were responding to the interpretations or possible interpretations of
others. Even when you point out features or qualities of an artistic work that others have not
noticed, you are implicitly disagreeing with what those interpreters have said by pointing out that
they missed or overlooked something that, in your view, is important. In any effective
interpretation then, you need to not only state what you yourself take the work of art to mean,
but to do so relative to the interpretations of other readers—be they professional scholars,
teachers, classmates, or even hypothetical readers (as in, “Although some readers might think
this poem is about _______, it is in fact about _____”). (Graff and Birkenstein 53)
Thesis statements should also govern the organization of your paper. Not in a mechanical way (“this
novel has three interesting ideas,” followed by 3 paragraphs, one devoted to each idea)! Instead, each
subsequent paragraph should begin with a main point, or topic sentence, that supports the thesis in
some way. Like your thesis statement, topic sentences should be claims about meaning and
significance, not descriptions of the text.
Works Cited
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New
York: Norton, 2006.
A Partial List of Things to Cover When Interpreting a Literary Passage
• Who speaks? Is it the narrator in a novel, or a persona standing in for the poet? a character?
• What is the tone of the passage? Rueful? sardonic? arch? sarcastic? passionate? bored?
judgmental? How can you tell?
• What is the diction of the passage? Formal? colloquial? Is it in dialect?
• Look at the passage’s syntax. Is it well-ordered and balanced? Frenzied? Is the passage
noticeably ungrammatical? What is the effect of this choice?
• Look at the shape of the words in your passage. Does anything jump out at you? Are syllables
consistently added or omitted? Does the speaker transpose letters frequently?
• Look at the shape of the sentence. Are its parts parallel in structure? Does the parallel structure
represent agreement or antithesis? Are there notable deviations from conventional word
order? Is there noticeable repetition? Alliteration, assonance?
• Now think of the meaning of the words and consider them as potential tropes. (Irony,
metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia.