Mr. Lutz / 12AP
January Choice Reading: Close Reading Quotes
This month’s focus is the Power of Choice and the Weight of Self-determinism.
Your project for the independent reading is as follows:
1. Select one of this month’s Enduring Understanding concepts that you feel is most appropriate for your
book. This will serve as your thematic focus.
2. Compose a thesis that illustrates the author’s employment of that theme.
3. Select three powerful and relatively short (under 100 words each) passages from the book – one from
the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end – that speak to the greater thematic power of
the work as a whole.
4. Record and cite each of the passages that you have chosen.
5. Perform a close reading of each passage and provide insights that you garner through your study of it.
Include a separate section of commentary for each of the following focuses of close reading:
1. Its “Subject” (topical focus, Concrete and Abstract)
2. The inherent complexity or irony or ambiguity and its thematic purpose / effect
3. Its primary structural quality of note (cf. Close Reading Guidelines handout)
4. Its primary stylistic quality of note (cf. Close Reading Guidelines handout)
5. Its use of figurative language for thematic purpose / effect
Name______________
Quotation of
passage
Subject
C or I or A
Treatment of primary
structural quality of note
Treatment of primary
stylistic quality of note
Author’s use of figurative
language
Book Title___________________
1: lists the quote and cites
it appropriately
1: notes both concrete and
abstract subject
appropriately
1: notes quality of the
C/I/A and accurately
explores its nature and
thematic implications for
the work as a whole
1: accurately notes primary
structural quality and
accurately and thoughtfully
explores its nature AND its
thematic implications for
the work as a whole
1: accurately notes primary
stylistic quality and
accurately and thoughtfully
explores its nature AND its
thematic implications for
the work as a whole
1: accurately identifies
figurative language and
thoughtfully explores its
overall thematic purpose /
effect
# of pages______________
.75: lists the quote and
cites it with error
.75: notes concrete OR
abstract subject
appropriately
.75: notes quality of C/I/A
and explores its thematic
connection accurately but
superficially
.5: lists the quote but fails
to cite it
.5: misreads subject(s)
.75: notes primary
structural quality and
explores its nature OR
thematic connection
accurately OR attends to
both but superficially
.75: notes primary stylistic
quality and explores its
nature OR thematic
connection accurately OR
attends to both but
superficially
.75: accurately identifies
figurative language and
superficially explores its
overall thematic purpose /
effect
.5: misreads primary
structural quality OR
inaccurately explores
thematic connection
.5: misreads quality of
C/I/A or does not explore
thematic connection
.5: misreads primary
stylistic quality OR
inaccurately explores
thematic connection
.5: inaccurately identifies
figurative language OR
implausibly interprets its
thematic purpose / effect
Mr. Lutz / 12AP
January Choice Reading: Close Reading Quotes
Example:
Thematic focus: Free will and the power to choose carry a weight of responsibility.
Thesis:
Marlow’s acceptance of the mission to account for Kurtz’s behavior in turn forces him to reevaluate and account for
his own life choices.
Passage #1:
“There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and Marlow’s lean face appeared, worn, hollow, with
downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention; and as her took vigorous draws at his
pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of the night in the regular flicker of the tiny flame. The match went out”
(43).
Concrete Subject:
This is the shadowy narrator listening to Marlow on the Thames.
Abstract Subject:
We are given the impression of truth struggling to come out of the darkness and into the light.
Irony:
Marlow, the stoic, is ironically perceived as just as edgy and mysterious as this “Kurtz” to whom Marlow refers.
We are uncertain what his experience has done to him. Conrad juxtaposes glimmers of light (i.e. knowledge,
even hope) with Marlow’s haggard face appearing briefly in the light, versus the darkness that swallows him as
he enters back into his story. Since this appears at the beginning of the book, we relatively quickly establish that
whatever Marlow encountered on his journey has left him still wrestling with truth, as he is flitting in and out of
the shadows. It is as if he is neither fully dark nor light, yet fully and equally both; it has paradoxically divided
and conjoined him to accept that he – and perhaps each of us – is not as simply put together as we might
assume.
Structural Quality:
Conrad sets up the structure of the narrative as a frame story to provide an objective filter to Marlow’s tale. We
hear this second-hand through our narrator as he listens to Marlow’s account. Our narrator is unbiased and
unconnected to the events and is relaying them to us without an agenda. He is also weighing his impression of
Marlow’s truthfulness in the telling, which gives the tale more credence and a sense of pathos for us toward
Marlow.
Stylistic Quality:
Conrad consistently employs sensory details and a barrage of imagery that connotes emotion – the shadows, the
“downward folds and dropped eyelids” not only give readers an image of the scene and the speaker but also
provide an emotional fabric of the struggle of the speaker's experience.
Figurative Language - Symbol:
The darkness itself is a symbol of Marlow’s experience as it engulfs him in the telling of the tale; he cannot tell
it in the light but must retreat back to the shadows. This creates a mysterious awe for Marlow and his story,
perhaps involving a mystique; perhaps to foreshadow the darkness that inevitably follows in the narrative;
perhaps to connect the image of darkness (mystery, fear, ignorance) to the story and its conflicts and its players.
-----------------------------------------------2016 choices:
Macbeth, The Red Badge of Courage, Oedipus Rex, Book of Job / JB, Crime and Punishment, The Picture of Dorian
Gray, Love in the Time of Cholera, Monkey Bridge, The Bluest Eye, Slaughterhouse Five, The Road, The Catcher
in the Rye (perm.), The Scarlet Letter (perm.), Frankenstein (perm.), Siddhartha (perm.)