I put
"essay" in quotes because this is not an essay, per se. It is more, a
synthesis exercise.
As you
read TC Boyle, number on a page from
1-10. Write out the ten sentences from the book that catch your eye or make
you think. After each sentence, give a brief
description of what the sentences means to you or why you included it.
HERE IS
AN EXAMPLE:
1.
"For a long moment they stood there, examining
each other, unwitting perpetrator and unwitting victim, and then the man let
the useless bag drop from his fingers with a tinkle of broken glass" Page
8
This sentence caught my eye because of
the word unwitting. Why does the author put these people together so early in
the book and then say that they are both “unwitting?”
2.
She didn't answer, and he felt the cold seep into
his veins, a coldness and a weariness like nothing he'd ever known. Page 355
Boyle does a good job of
describing the emptiness of death in this sentence, both cold and weary and
unlike anything Candido, or anyone, can experience.
After those
ten sentences comes the more difficult but rewarding part. You are going to
write a synthesis. A synthesis is a type of writing where you take various
unrelated writings and find some insight drawn from them. It is writing that
creates connections between thoughts. You are not comparing the
thoughts, but you are using these ten sentences to say one thing. When you
examine the ten sentences together, what new
insight do you gain that may have
been undeveloped just by looking at the individual sentences?
That will
be labeled “Synthesis” and will be at the bottom of the numbered ten sentences.
As I
said, this is a little weird, but it usually produces good writing. You are simply
numbering and writing about ten sentences and then writing about how they are
connected. In fact, STRIVE FOR CONNECTEDNESS. GO BEYOND THE OBVIOUS. SYNTHESIS
IS ABOUT INFERRING MEANING, NOT ABOUT STATING THE OBVIOUS. I am grading your
writing in this section, but more importantly, I am grading your ability to
create a unique synthesis, an original claim about the book.
THE
SYNTHESIS SECTION IS APPROXIMATELY ONE PAGE.
Since
it is a bit odd, I wanted to give you one good example of the synthesis part.
The length of the synthesis is about a page. The author should have used one or
two more examples of his main point of synthesis. But as you can see, the
author has located clearly what the one area is that ties his sentences
together. By the way, if your key idea only captures five or six of your sentences,
that is fine too. You do not have to use all ten. Also, where this one is
lacking is in the analysis. It is a bit pedestrian. Strive for depth!
STUDENT SAMPLE:
SYNTHESIS
The similar connection between most of
the chosen passages would be the racist or hate aspect. The focus on race or
between being Mexican or not is a huge factor throughout the book. It seems as
though all the characters want to be or think that they are better than the
person next to them. “Fucking Beaners. Rip it up man. Destroy it.” (page 64).
This is an example of a quote from the book that shows the anger or animosity
towards different races. Most of the quotes are also driven with anger or hate.
I found that harsh words were spoken when characters were most upset or seemed
to be in some type of turmoil. The unique choice of words Boyle uses for these
passages is also a connection between the quotes. It seems as though Boyle
chooses words that build some type of emotion or fire within the reader, as if
he was aiming to provoke emotion within the reader. At the very least these
quotes cause the reader to pause and think or feel the anger or pain the
characters are feeling at the time. Another link between these quotes would be
their context they are almost all referring to someone other than themselves,
or trying to pass the blame a different way. Overall this book and these quotes
are thought provoking as well as emotion filled passages that allow a person to
feel what the characters are feeling.
No comments:
Post a Comment