ESSAY 2 ASSIGNMENT: LENS ANALYSIS
Assignment Concept: Lens analysis requires you to distill a concept, theory, method, or claim from a text (i.e. the “lens”) and then use it to interpret, analyze, or explore something else e.g. a first-hand experience, visual text, physical object or space, historical or current event or figure, a cultural phenomenon, an idea or even another text (i.e. “the exhibit”). A writer employing lens analysis seeks to assert something new and unexpected about the exhibit; she strives to go beyond the expected or the obvious, exploiting the lens to acquire novel insights. Furthermore, there is a reciprocal aspect in that the exploration of the exhibit should cause the writer to reflet, elaborate, or comment on the selected concept or claim. Using a concept developed by someone else to conduct an analysis or interpretation of one’s own is a fundamental move in academia, one that you will no doubt be required to perform time and time again in college.
Assignment Prompt: Choose one of the following prompts for your essay.
- Discuss the key themes of the serial prose poem Humanimal. Produce a close reading in your investigation of these metaphors. Make use of other relevant texts to prove your point.
- Explain how Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus reflects humanist ideals, and how those ideals may or may not also be reflected in Hans Moravec’s “Pigs in Cyberspace.”
- Discuss the key themes of the short story “The Universe of Things.” Produce a close reading in your investigation of these themes. Make use of other relevant texts to prove your point.
What I am looking for (a.k.a. how you get your “grade”, i.e. full points):
- Do you know how to read a writer’s biography and extract the relevant information that will help give useful context to the novel and the topic you are discussing?
- Do you know how to create a clear and interesting thesis that answers the prompt?
- Do you know how to structure paragraphs around topic sentences?
- Do you know how to extract relevant information from the texts to support your thesis and topic sentences?
- Do you know how to use, integrate, cite, and document other people’s ideas properly?
- Do you rework your draft after receiving feedback from readers?
- Do you edit and proofread your drafts?
