Textual Analysis Notes to help with mural essay.

There are certain key elements that comprise a textual analysis essay. These are:

SUMMARY: whatever the “text” is , you need to assume that the readers do not have any idea what or who it is about. Aim to give a summary in your analysis  to include them in the conversation, to make sure they can follow the details.

Pay attention to the Context: any type of text that you look at is part of an ongoing conversation, a controversy, or a debate. To understand it, you need to understand the larger picture.

Interpretation: Your goal is to lead your readers through a careful examination of the text to some kind of judgement, and this is generally announced in the thesis statement.

When you interpret something,you explain what you think it means.

Support your analysis with evidence- this comes from actual parts of the text.

When you analyze a text, your goal is to understand what it says, how it works, and what it means. You may want to follow a certain sequence to better come up with an argument.

Look at your paper right now and apply these steps to your own textual analysis.

1. Read to see what the text says- literally. Look for actual words, ideas, key words, phrases, etc. that seem worthy or questionable. Look for these in the image of your mural.
2. Think about your response to the text’s words. What is your reaction to the tone, to the language, to the image? Do you find it difficult to understand? Summarize it and describe it in the paper.
3. Look at how the TEXT works. Texts are made up of several components--words, sentences, images, lines, angles, colors, light and shadow. Look for patterns in the way they are used.
4. Think about the larger context. To analyze a text’s role in its larger context, you may need to think about the text outside of the actual image itself ( like the neighborhood around it or think about the people who view it)
5. Come up with a thesis. Do you want to show the text has a certain meaning? A certain purpose?

Textual Analysis Assignment

Due Date

You should aim to visit your mural by October 27th. We will workshop after that.

What We’re Writing

So far this semester, you have been practicing the skills of summary and analysis, using persuasive techniques and also relying on your own narratives and lived experiences. For this next assignment, you will step outside your own experience and analyze a text that you will have to become familiar with. 

This essay is a thesis-driven analysis of a visual text: a mural of your choice. Each of you will visit several murals highlighted by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, choose one of those murals on which to focus your analysis, and then argue what the message of your chosen mural is. You must physically visit your mural. You will use evidence from the mural (color palette, facial expressions and body language of any people who are depicted, texture of the paint, location, etc.) to argue what you think the mural is saying. 

Your essay should include an introduction, a thesis, close reading of your feature to provide evidence for your claim, and a conclusion that “expands” your topic rather than shuts it down (sometimes we refer to this as the “so what?” of an essay). If you’d like, you can think of this essay as a profile of a place. Often, journalists will profile significant spaces in a city by explaining why they are important—giving them meaning within the context of the city. You can do the same. What role does your mural play in the larger persona or character of the neighborhood in which it is situated? 

Purpose

This essay will give you some more practice with summary, analysis, and reflection. It also acquaints you with the city that you live in and gets you into the routine of “reading” the world around you, not just blithely letting it pass you by. Seeing the world like a writer or a researcher allows you to see it differently, more specifically—sharper. Put on this hat for a change and see what you can notice that you wouldn’t normally see. 

Audience

All of us; all writing is up for peer review.

Specifics

Times New Roman 12, double-spaced, font size 12. 1000-1500 words.