Analysis of an Essay

How nice is this?  We already worked this essay over the weekend to prepare for Monday's lesson/exercise on analysis.  What we did in class was something called a Rhetorical Analysis.  Here I am asking you to look at the essay for more technical issues concerning the organization of her paragraphs, so these questions have to do more with Structural Analysis.

#5  Discussion Questions for “The French Language: The Heart of Louisiana” by Kalyn Guidry

(The Reader)

1)      In her first paragraph, Guidry answers the who what when where why of the issue she is writing about.  They aren’t necessarily in that order, but they are all there.  List them to the best of your ability, like this:

Who:

What:

When:

Where:

Why:

2)      On her fourth page, in the paragraph that begins, “There are so many benefits of speaking one’s heritage language.” Guidry starts with that main idea that  supports her over all thesis statement and then gives some evidence and analysis to prove herself correct to her reader.   (She doesn’t just give only one point of evidence followed by one point of analysis then move right to the link.) Sentence by sentence, assign the letter of the MEAL plan that she uses in her paragraph by describing what the sentence is doing.  I’ll start you off:

Sentence one: M             She is giving the main idea.

Sentence two:

After you are done assigning parts of the MEAL plan to her sentences, look them over and decide if it works well for you as an audience member, or if you would personally rearrange or add anything, then tell us about it.

3)       She uses a different conclusion style than the simple formula of:

•     Restate thesis
•     Restate main points (or even Restate points of analysis, as I prefer)
•    Final strong idea, suggestion, or call to action

Describe her “formula” in a bullet point description style (It doesn’t have to be just three points).  I’ll start you off:

•  Reminds reader of the chronology (time period) covered in this particular treatment of the topic or subject matter

4)  We have looked at the Intro, at a Body Paragraph, and at the conclusion.  Lets backtrack now and look at transitions.

Page 3 begins with the last few lines of paragraph 2.  She uses the "carry over the key phrase or idea" tactic" that I talked about in class.  What is the key idea that she uses to bridge these two paragraphs?

Same page: Paragraphs 4 and 5, what is the key idea that she uses to bridge these two paragraphs?

Next page: Paragraphs 7 and 8, the key idea she carries over to bridge the two paragraphs is culture.  Could you tell that at first?  The word culture comes all the way at the end of the Main Idea sentence of paragraph 8! So, while she did carry over the key idea, the reader may not make the connection as easily.  Revise the sentence so that the word "culture" comes closer to the beginning.