+ Writing a Response to Literature Focus on Developing Commentary

+ What is Commentary? Commentary is analysis, making induction about a particular passage. Commentary explains what the author means.

+ How do I write commentary? Do not restate what the author has written. That is called paraphrasing. Instead, discuss how and why the passage is important.

+ Where do I begin? It’s easy as 1, 2, 3… 1.) The easiest way to comment on a passage is to locate a key word, phrase, or image in the quotation. 2.) Consider the connotations of the key words/phrase/image. (Connotation = the shades of meaning or the emotional suggestions) 3.)Finally, explain how the key word/phrase/image provides insight into what

+ What if I’m having difficulty pinpointing key words/phrases/images? Look for the following:  Character development: What is revealed about the character’s personality?  Theme: Look to see if there is anything revealed about the author’s message? Literary devices such as: simile, metaphor, irony, etc. Consider the reason WHY the author creates this figurative/rhetorical language. What is the writer trying to emphasize, highlight, or convey? Now comment. Italicize or “quote” the words/phrases and integrate them into your sentence(s) as you analyze the significance of the passage.

+ Example 1: From The Chosen by Chaim Potok “ The hydrangea bush on our lawn glowed in the sunlight, and I stared at it. I had never really paid any attention to it before. Now it seemed suddenly luminous and alive” (Potok 93). Potok fills this passage with images of light, playing on the book’s theme of vision and insight. Returning to his home after his eye operation, Reuven’s new ability to see is reflected in a world that, despite his bandaged eye, “glowed in the sunlight,” a world so newly vibrant that it becomes “luminous,” a contrast to the darkness of the eye ward.

+ Example 2: From The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan “ My mother didn’t treat me this way because she didn’t love me. She would say this biting back her tongue, so she wouldn’t wish for something that was no longer hers” (Lee 45). Raised in a culture that discourages emotional expression, Lindo Jong learns from her mother to repress her emotions. She symbolizes her mother’s repression by noting that the woman’s “biting back her tongue,” effectively censoring any expression of love.

+ Example 3: From Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare “ If music be the food of love, play on,/Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,/The appetite may sicken, and so die” (I.I. 1-3). Employing a metaphor that compares love to food, Orsino requests an “excess” of music not for pleasure but so that he may glut himself (“surfeiting”) on love and thus kill his “appetite” for more love.

+ Practice: From Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare “ O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,/And men have lost their reason. Bear with me:/My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,/And I must pause till it come back to me” (III.ii.). Directions: Analyze the significance of the above quotation as well as a concrete detail from your outline, integrating the bolded phrases into your commentary. Please type 3-4 sentences responses for each concrete detail and format according to MLA guidelines. This is due tomorrow.

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