Answering the analysis
question
Working the prompt
1. Check the time: note the time
2. Analyze the prompt—circle essential
terms
Ex: The following paragraphs are
from the opening of Truman Capote’s In Cold
Blood. After carefully reading the excerpt, write a
well-organized essay in which you Characterize
Capote’s view of Holcomb, Kansas and analyze how
Capote conveys this view. Your analysis may
consider such stylistic elements as diction, imagery,
syntax, structure, tone, and selection of detail.
Analyzing the prompt
The following paragraphs are from the
opening of Truman Capote’s In Cold
Blood. After carefully reading the excerpt,
write a well-organized essay in which you
characterize Capote’s view of Holcomb,
Kansas and analyze how Capote
conveys this view. Your analysis may
consider such stylistic elements as diction,
imagery, syntax, structure, tone, and
selection of detail.
Analyzing the prompt
• If the question reads such as you may
use your own selection of techniques,
strategies, and devices.
• You must use more than one device
• Note title of work, author, date of
publication, genre can prove helpful in
determining audience and therefore
purpose
Read/annotate passage-8-10
minutes
• Skim to get idea of passage
• Reread, using marginal notes (mess up text,
complete double entry diary)
• Reread slowly, using your notes
• Reread to confirm that you get the entire
passage.
• Do not skim only to retrieve strategies for
essay; may not get the point of the passage
Opening paragraph
• Catches eye of reader
• Sets tone of essay
• May increase score by ingratiating
yourself to reader.
• Do not depend wholly on good style,
voice, however
What to include in intro
paragraph
• Author, title
• Segment of question Ex: Capote’s view of
Holcomb
• Elements you will refer to in essay in the
order in which you will address them
Example A
• In the opening of In Cold Blood, Truman
Capote presents a picture of the town of
Holcomb, Kansas. Through structure,
selection of detail, and a detached tone,
Capote’s view of Holcomb portrays small
town life as dull and ordinary.
• Strategies--shadowed
• Effect—italicized
• Purpose--underlined
Example B
• Holcomb, Kansas, Holcomb, Kansas. Even the
sound of the place is boring and
uninteresting. Moreover, Truman Capote
seems to agree with this in his opening to In
Cold Blood. Most readers would be inclined
to pass by this sleepy, bland, and
undistinguished hamlet. This view is
developed through the author’s tone,
structure, and selection of detail.
• Strategies--shadowed
• Effect—italicized
• Purpose--underlined
Example C
• “Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on
the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking
down the Santa Fe tracks, drama in the shape of
exceptional happenings, had never stopped here.
This is the town of Holcomb, Kansas.” Using a
reporter’s objective tone, specific structure, and
selection of detail, Capote in the opening of his
novel shows the town much like any other
American town, perhaps to lull readers to believe
into a false sense of security.
• Strategies--shadowed
• Effect—italicized
• Purpose--underlined
Example D
• In Cold Blood is a very appropriate title,
because Capote presents a cold and
unemotional view of Holcomb, Kansas. His
tone, structure, and selection of detail creates
a distant and detached picture of this
desolate farm community thus showing this
type of crime could occur anywhere.
• Strategies--shadowed
• Effect—italicized
• Purpose--underlined
Which type do you use?
• Sample A restates the question
without elaborating: to the
point and correct but does
not catch reader’s
interest.
• Use if you feel unsure or
uncomfortable with prompt
Which type do you use?
• Sample B reflects writer who
has a voice; he/she has
determined Capote’s
view and understands
how view is created.
Which type do you use?
• Sample C immediately places the
reader into the passage by
referring specifically to
it.
Which type do you use?
• Sample D reveals mature, confident
writer who is unafraid to make his or
ties in
some aspect of passage
with his/her analysis.
her own voice heard;
What next?
USE transition from intro to first body
paragraph
• Transitional expressions
• Word, phrase, that is used in thesis
• Idea that is used in thesis
Arrangement of body
paragraphs
• Follow the format set forth in your thesis
statement.
• This will assist your reader in following
your logic
What goes in the body of
essay?
Use specific references to passage
1.
2.
3.
.
Explain the strategy the author uses (first
person narrative)
Give specific examples from the text to
illustrate the strategy (Do not always
paraphrase the original. Directly refer to the
original. (explicit examples.)
Explain why the author uses this technique
and what overall effect it has on the work.
How do you move from one idea
to another?
Use connective tissue to stick to
the question
1. Repeat key ideas from prompt
and your opening paragraph
2. Use synonyms
town/village, hamlet
bland/ordinary/undistinguished
Example
presents a cold and unemotional view of Holcomb, Kansas.
His objective tone, structure, and selection of detail creates a
distant and detached picture of this desolate farm community
thus showing this type of crime could occur anywhere.
Capote utilizes an objective tone , much like that of
a journalist in his description of the town. For
example, in “Like the waters of the river, like the motorists
on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the
Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional
happenings, had never stopped there “ the author categorizes
very ordinary life and all of its mundane behavior s in order to
demonstrate how typical the town is. In so doing, he draws a
parallel between Holcomb and the readers’ towns.
Conclusion
• Briefly restate thesis.
• Capote repeatedly draws on the readers’
sense of security in recognizing their
hometowns .
• Draw conclusions about the authors’
motives
• After he lulls them to this point , he then
reveals the horrific crime that befell the
family of the sleepy farm town.
• .
Clincher: return to attn getter
In Cold Blood is then effective not
only to explain the details of the
story style, but equally effective in
describing Capote’s disregard of the
horror of the audience