#english class help

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

tranquil briar
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i've been looking for help as i'm very lost on how to write a language analysis essay on fiction work, most examples i've seen are for nonfiction

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i can still apply most of it, but the terms of the actual assignment are confusing and frustrating

craggy ermine
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literature potato here, what is your assignmenent on ?

tranquil briar
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i'll see if i can send over my rubric

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this is what i currently have for my essay, it took me two hours just to write an introduction
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13XDPpLsP5cY1IiE2PjNg4HQCrcWjo84e_X0tr8FVCGg/edit?usp=sharing

Google Docs
essay #2

Shua Choi Jessica Ackerman Twice Told Tales 09 June 2022 Magic Through Words The premise of Sleeping Beauty is a very simple and clean one: A girl is locked in a hundred-year slumber, trapped behind rose bushes and thorns until a man comes and saves her; the two then fall in love and live happy ...

craggy ermine
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ok so your main thesis is that the author reinterprets the Sleeping Beauty story right?

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i'm sorry to say but it's too vague of a thesis

tranquil briar
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yeah, she basically uses the poem to argue that sleeping beauty is unrealistic

craggy ermine
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well

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that's not really the point of the tale...

tranquil briar
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? i'm not sure what you mean

craggy ermine
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mmh can you send the exerpt you are basing your essay on?

tranquil briar
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alright

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i'll send it as plain text since it isn't too long

craggy ermine
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i don't think the point of a retelling is to say "this is not a realistic story" but i can be wrong ahah

tranquil briar
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the sleeper
sarah henderson hay

(She speaks...)
I wish the Prince had left me where he found me,
Wrapped in a rosy trance so charmed and deep
I might have lain a hundred years asleep.
I hate this new and noisy world around me!
The palace hums with sightseers from town,
There's not a quiet spot that I can find.
And, worst of all, he's chopped the brambles down-
The lovely briars I've felt so safe behind.
But if he thinks that with a kiss or two
He'll buy my dearest privacy, or shake me
Out of the cloistered world I've loved so long,
Or tear the pattern of my dream, he's wrong.
Nothing this clumsy trespasser can do
c

(He speaks ...)
I used to think that slumbrous look she wore,
The dreaming air, the drowsy-lidded eyes,
Were artless affectation, nothing more.
But now, and far too late, I realize
How sound she sleeps, behind a thorny wall
Of rooted selfishness, whose stubborn strands
I broke through once, to kiss her lips and hands. And wake her heart, that never woke at all.
I wish I'd gone away that self-same hour,
Before I learned how, like her twining roses,
She bends to her own soft, implacable uses
The pretty tactics that such vines employ,
To hide the poisoned barb beneath the flower,
To cling about, to strangle, to destroy.

tranquil briar
craggy ermine
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yes, that's the thing, if you haven't carefully read and analysed the text, you can't really find a tailored thesis

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(oh btw english isn't my native language so i hope i don't make too many mistakes)

tranquil briar
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you're fine! don't worry about it

craggy ermine
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ok so you have a very comprehensive guide on how to do your essay, have you done the 1st step

tranquil briar
tranquil briar
craggy ermine
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so what do you have ahah

tranquil briar
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i really didn't understand what it meant but i did identify the main words that were repeated

craggy ermine
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1st step is your general reading, and very simple observation

tranquil briar
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the more i read this first step the more i realize i was overthinking

craggy ermine
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what is particular about this text that isn't for others

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you need to base your work on concrete elements first ahaha

tranquil briar
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i definitely should 😭

craggy ermine
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so what are the things you can see at first read

tranquil briar
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i'm very much used to straight-ahead academic writing and i usually write my essays without plans and on the spot

tranquil briar
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it's written in an informal but still really flowery way

craggy ermine
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humour can be used on any writing, and i don't think it is

tranquil briar
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i'm not really sure how to describe it?

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it's not humor but it's funny

craggy ermine
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ah,

tranquil briar
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imagining what would happen in sleeping beauty afterward with more modern language and attitudes

craggy ermine
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there's where i don't see the humour then ahah

craggy ermine
tranquil briar
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humor is not a good word it's just kind of hard to describe
i'll probably just say it as it is

tranquil briar
craggy ermine
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ok so there is a modern take on an anciant tale; that's a first observation

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see how the story is told?

tranquil briar
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it switches perspectives from the princess to the prince

craggy ermine
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exactly

tranquil briar
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that was another thing i noted: it gives them distinct personalities which made it interesting

craggy ermine
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it's a first personn perspective+ 2 perspectives

tranquil briar
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could that in and of itself be used as a device ?

craggy ermine
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this is very different from how the tale was conveyed

tranquil briar
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i really like the idea i'm just unsure of how to tie it back to a thesis

craggy ermine
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no no , just for now we are doing observations

tranquil briar
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or even what my thesis is

tranquil briar
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yeah i'm getting ahead of myself

craggy ermine
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ok listen you need to do first a bunch of observations, then close analysis, THEN draw some general arguments, THEN construct a thesis that can englobe your arguments

tranquil briar
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i really needed someone to spell it out for me, i was reading the rubric and i got so lost
i don't think i've ever written an essay like this before but talking it through made it make a lot more sense

craggy ermine
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i can't do the work for you but i can help with telling basics like:
->check out (on wikipedia) the origin and the most known version of the tale; which you would be interesting to compare with your exerpt (on how it was told, who tells it, what effect does it have on the reader, what is the issue of the story etc etc

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it's very different and this should be one of the observation you can dive in

tranquil briar
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this is all really simple i just overthought everything and made it harder for myself 💀

craggy ermine
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there are alot of sources, like a medieval version of perceforest, a 17th century one by Perrault, then the Grimm brothers

tranquil briar
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oh shit yeah the instructor had us read those

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(perceforest and grimm)

craggy ermine
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but none of these versions offer the personnal voice of the character (she doesn't have a name in perrault's version LOL)

tranquil briar
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isn't it briar rose

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that's the grimm version isn't it

craggy ermine
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nope

tranquil briar
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💀

craggy ermine
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not in perrault

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aha

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i haven't read grimm's in a while so i don't remember

tranquil briar
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i could check right now LOL

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the class gave us pdf versions of these

craggy ermine
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so this is the first step, basic comparisons with the previous versions, and what's new/ interesting about your particular exerpt

tranquil briar
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that makes much more sense

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so i should base my essay on how it uses distinct language to distinguish itself from previous sources ?

craggy ermine
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no

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hahhaha

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not necessarily

tranquil briar
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i'm just hung up on this

Construct an
argument about how the author uses language in this passage, making sure to include why the
author might use such language in this passage.

craggy ermine
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please please FIRST gather your insights, and your analysis THEN find an idea that challenges and combines your arguments

tranquil briar
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alright

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i'm so glad i'm not an english major LOL

craggy ermine
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so if you see 'oh interesting the text is in verses' (not in prose) you can then compare it to grimms' and perrault version and percieve that it's new compared to them (and even perceforest)

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that's a choice by the author and you can take that as a clue

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verses in poetry have quite some desired effects, you should look into that aswell, for example lyricism; and you should carefully choose the line you cite, why do you think this is more lyrical, or for example what effect certain rhymes have (on the text itself, on the rythm, on the reader etc etc)

craggy ermine
tranquil briar
tranquil briar
craggy ermine
tranquil briar
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i think for me it's just hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of objective analysis of a very subjective piece, trying to make an argument for a non-persuasive text
of course every piece of writing has inherent bias, i guess i just work worse when things aren't spelled out objectively

craggy ermine
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well it would probably be a bad analysis if you yourself are enrtirely biased, this is why you need to base your argument on "evidences" or "clues" from that text

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like what are the effects of making "divine" rhyme with "porcupine"

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(this is a fictive example ahah but you get the point)

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or even why some author made that choice

tranquil briar
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@craggy ermine i messed up, apparently the terms of the assignment are to write about word choice and such within a much shorter excerpt of text

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an entire poem is too much

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i now have a much clearer idea of what i was supposed to do, it’s way easier than i thought it was and i misunderstood the assignment completely😭

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thank you so so much again for all the advice you’ve given though, i’ll definitely keep it in mind for this essay

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i really truly have to apologise though because i completely misinterpreted your advice and made things much harder than they needed to be

craggy ermine
tranquil briar
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yeah it was incredibly clear, i just read into it wrong😭

craggy ermine