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Choosing Passages and Responding via CQE
Honors English II—Dr. T.—3/29/12
Name_____________
Here are the basic principles:
Context
1. Explain time and place, especially if the quote points outside itself
(e.g., to Coketown, which you would need to identify as a polluted,
mid-nineteenth century factory town). BUT don’t repeat information
from the introduction.
2. Identify the pronouns
 clearly state what character each personal pronoun designates
 identify the antecedent of any other crucial pronoun
3. Give identities of characters (if not already given in summary
introduction)
4. Ask yourself what information your reader needs to make a smooth
transition into the passage. (Contexts are transitions between your
analysis and the quoted passage.)
5. Include a stem:
 the speaker + a vivid verb, e.g., Bounderby brags, “ . . . .”
 The stem may include the character the speaker is addressing, e.g.,
In an apostrophe, Sparsit taunts Louisa, “ . . . . “
 You may want to tuck in an adverb to characterize the speech, e.g.,
Harthouse pleads delicately, “ . . . .”
Quote
1. Avoid passages which only state facts or only advance the narrative.
2. Choose passages that use poetic techniques: simile, metaphor,
personification, word play, irony, apostrophe, etc. Then creatively
read the way the passage deploys the technique. Direct your reading
toward your point.
3. Choose compelling passages that stimulate your thinking or challenge
and perplex you. Then step to one side, do some thinking, and choose
a perspective that offers a way to read the passage.
4. Choose passages that allow you to draw on your knowledge of the
philosophers we have studied, e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, Marx,
Freud, Rubin, etc. Use the ideas of these thinkers in your analysis.
5. Choose passages that allow you to draw on your knowledge of
surrealism and/or existentialism.
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Explanation/Analysis/Commentary
1. Good moves:
 Direct the reader’s attention to the way in which the passage
supports your main point, topic sentence, thesis. If the passage
does not support the ideas of the paragraph, drop it and find
another one.
 If you are stuck on your analysis, but you think you have an
important passage, try some free writing to open up your thoughts.
2.Responses to avoid:
 Paraphrase--At all times, after quoting a passage, avoid paraphrase /
repetition. If you have no response beyond paraphrase and repetition,
drop the passage and look for a different one.
 General / Global—avoid making generalizations about how the world
works (using the vague terms, e.g., “people,” “person,” “thing,”
“you,” “we,” or broad categories of generalization, e.g. “bullies,”
“naïve young women”)
 Personal—avoid referring to your own life (“I,” “me”)
 Speculation—avoid guessing about what might happen (“if,”
“maybe,” “might,” “probably”); avoid guessing how the plot might
have turned out if one of the elements had been changed (“if . . .
then”)
 Summarizing—avoid inserting chunks of plot after the quoted
passage. (Plot summary goes in the introduction or—minimally—in
the context.)
 Off-topic or Illogical
General Comment: Don’t forget to use LITERARY PRESENT TENSE
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Passages to review:
Fact: You can easily paraphrase the passage below. Please note that this
passage offers almost no opportunity for useful analysis: it is quite short; it
does not use figurative language; it offers no opportunity for historical or
philosophical response.
By itself, this sentence will not add much of anything to an argument. If
such a sentence does catch your eye, you may want to include it in a longer
quote from the text.
“Mr. Gradgrind walked home in a state of considerable satisfaction”
(Dickens 15).
Figurative Language: When your passage uses a metaphor, simile, etc.,
explain how the metaphor supports the main point, topic sentence, thesis.
(To support the following example, I would include character identifications
of Bounderby, Mrs. Sparsit, Harthouse, and Louisa in the introduction.)
Victorian culture included the non-negotiable dictate that middle-class
women preserve unsullied sexual reputations. Consequently, when
Harthouse begins his exploration of the beautiful Louisa’s perplexing
character, Bounderby’s domestic watchdog, Mrs. Sparsit, keeps tabs on the
young pair. The narrator says of Sparsit: “She erected in her mind a mighty
staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and down those
stairs, from day to day and hour to hour, she saw Louisa coming” (Dickens
188). Louisa is nearly as innocent as Eve, and Harthouse is certainly a
snake. Mrs. Sparsit’s clever metaphor draws indirectly on the biblical Fall.
Should Louisa commit adultery, she would, without doubt, be ejected from
polite Victorian society.
Note: In a formal essay, all of the above, including the quotes, would be
double-spaced.
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