Present an analysis of the function of “difference” in a written or visual text. You may analyse the excerpts from Convenience Store Woman, Normal People or Fun Home that we discussed in class or you may choose another text (must be approved by me during class conferences). All of the excerpts that we discussed in class are from longer works, which you may choose to draw from if you wish. You may, for example, choose to analyse a scene from a later episode of Normal People, or from the book by Sally Rooney. Be careful, however, to choose a short scene to focus your analysis on. You cannot analyse a whole novel in five pages.

Thesis

You will need to choose a topic for your paper that is narrow enough to allow you to go into plenty of detail. You should focus on just one way in which the writer or creator presents difference from the social “norm,” whether that is difference in class, gender, or any other social role. The most successful papers will also focus on how this difference is presented in a small element of the text, perhaps just a single page or a detail that features throughout, such as clothing. Further, your thesis should tell us not just that the writer presents difference, but what they have to say about it.

Analysis

In this paper, you will practice one of the most important writing skills: analysis. Although this assignment is called the “analysis paper,” you will need to write analytically in every paper that you write for this course, so you should work hard on honing this skill now while you don’t have to worry about research or any other complications. The key to successful analysis is detail. To continue with the example of clothing, don’t just tell us that the writer presents social difference through clothing, tell us exactly which words or visual details represent masculine, feminine or working class roles. Then tell us how these details contribute to the writer’s “message.”

Please do not do research for this paper. We will cover ethical research practices later in the course, but students attempting to incorporate external sources without this training has in the past resulted in unintentional plagiarism. Moreover, successful analysis requires you to pay detailed attention to the material without getting distracted by outside information. If you find that you are struggling to understand the meaning of a text, or the writer’s “message,” please don’t just google it. Come and talk to me and I can help you work through your ideas.