Photo essay

ENGL 114L Break It Down Photo Essay

Prompt: SLO 2, 3

In your Weekly Journal Responses, youve practiced analyzing texts (breaking them down by the elements of their genre) and offering up your unique interpretations. For this essay, you are doing the same, but more in-depth, with more elements.

The overall purpose of the assignment is to read your text, break it down by at least four elements, and then explain what you personally interpret as its overall meaning or cultural significance. This essay will be in the medium of an Adobe Spark photo essay web page (well go over this in class).

Overall meaning or cultural significance? This is the texts message–what its really about under the surface, in broad, generalized terms, instead of narrow and wordy. This is referring to the element of theme and abstract ideas of what it means to be human (specifically in American culture). Consider ideas like isolation, loneliness, love, hate, cruelty, being misunderstood, being ignored, loyalty, guilt, equality, equity, freedom, etc.

What you should include: each section should should be a minimum of 100 words.

Introduction section: Identify the title and author of the text youll be discussing, why you chose this text, the elements youll be discussing, and (briefly) what your overall interpretation of the texts meaning or cultural significance.

4 Element section(s): Use the split layout option and add a photo, then identify the element by name, define it in your own words, explain how it functions in the story, and mention how it contributes to your overall interpretation of the texts meaning or cultural significance. Each element section should total 100 words. ** see below for specific elements to mention

Conclusion section: Again mention by name the elements you covered and the main points of your analysis, then emphasize the connections between elements and fully explain your overall interpretation of the texts meaning or cultural significance.

The focus is on your own thoughts and interpretations, but as you break down each element, you may find it useful to support your analysis with direct quotes from the text youre analyzing or direct quotes and ideas from outside sources. In both cases, you must cite to avoid plagiarism; see instructions on how to cite under Assignment Resources below. After any cited material, be sure to explain how it contributes to your analysis.

Although the content of this assignment is similar to your Weekly Journal Responses, remember that this is a major assignment vs. a rough, casual, in-class assignment. Therefore, your analysis here should be more detailed, thought-out, and polished, since you have the benefit of time for both prewriting and revising before submitting. You may submit a rough draft to receive feedback prior to submission.

Parameters:

• Fits the medium: an accessible Adobe Spark site with a title, introduction section, split layout with photo and written portion for each element, and conclusion section.
• Each section is a minimum of 100 words; each element section has a photo.
• One specific text that you are analyzing, from our or from the list below
• A clear explanation (break down) of your interpretation of the texts overall meaning/message or cultural significance based on analysis of the text
• Accurate to the text (character names, authors gender, etc.) and the four elements you choose to analyze from the texts genre, as covered in the course material (use your notes, google slidedecks in Canvas as well as elements cited below)
• Anything not from your own brain is cited, including direct quotes from the text but also any quotes OR summary, paraphrase or ideas from sources other than yourself or the text

To submit:

1. Go to your Adobe Spark web page. Be sure your photo essay is exactly how you want me to see it when I grade it.
2. At the top of the page, click Share Publish and share link (but if youve generated a link to this site before, youll need to instead click Publish Options Save and Update link in order to include any changes).
3. Copy the shareable link.
4. Go to Canvas Assignments Break It Down Photo Essay Break It Down Photo Essay Submission.
5. Under Assignment Submission click Write Submission.
6. Paste the shareable link into the text box.
7. Click Submit (not Save Draft).

Due date in Canvas.

On late major assignments: You may submit major assignments up to 3 days late, after that I will deduct 10 points per day until submitted. (This acts as forgiveness for any circumstances–broken computer, technological difficulties, personal or family emergencies, illness, etc. Save a late assignment for when you need it.)

Assignment Resources

Adobe Spark Help

Step-by-Step Guide on

Using Adobe Express

(5 min)

My colleagues, Mrs. Mohans example:

Texts to Choose From (choose a text we have already read for class OR you may choose one below).

Fiction: (all, except the first, are flash fiction, because theyre easier to analyze thoroughly in an essay)

1. (12 pg) – second-person, lengthier
2. by Sandra Cisneros (6 pg) – love, heartbreak
3. (2 pg) – more abstract, kind of a giant metaphor
4. (~3 pg) – definitely a more modern-day story; second-person (you)

Creative Nonfiction:

1. (5 pg) – comedy, childhood memoir
2. Vikrami Zutshi, (1 pg) comedy
3. by Amy Tan (3 pag), culture critique on language
4. by Kiese Laymon (3 pg), how place and food intersect

Drama:

1. (4 pg) – absurd, satire
2. (6 pg) – absurd, satire (requires more interpretation)
3. (4 pg) – more traditional

Poetry:

1. (3 min) – spoken word performance
2. (3 min) – spoken word performance
3. (3 min) – spoken word performance
4. (3 12 min) – spoken word performance
5. – more modern
6. – more modern

**Elements & Terminology of Each Genre

Prose (Fiction & Creative Nonfiction)

Terminology: authors write short stories, short short stories, and book excerpts.

1. Plot: What happens in the story, how, and why.
2. Character & Narration: Who is in the story and who tells the story (and in what tone, or attitude toward the subject).
3. Setting: When (temporal) and where (spatial) the story takes place.
4. Imagery & Symbolism: Tangible objects in the story that stand for intangible ideas.
5. Theme: The main ideas that the story explores; what the story is about under the surface.
6. Language: Specific word choice and its implications.
7. Narrator: every story has a narrator, some include reliable or unreliable narrators
8. Point of View: first, second, third (limited or omniscient)
9. Conflict: the problem in the story represented by internal or external conflict. Examples include character v. character, character v. self (internal), character v. society, character v. technology, character v. nature,

Poetry

Terminology: poets write poems.

All of the above elements plus:

1. Sound: The way the words sound together in a poem, including any kind of rhyming.
2. Structure: The way the poem is arranged on the page and the impact of that arrangement, usually to show development of the subject or an idea.
3. Allusion: reference to an idea, event, folk lore, etc. outside of the text

Drama

Terminology: playwrights write short plays.

All of the above elements, but remember:

• Plays have no narrator because they are almost entirely dialogue.
• Setting is limited in plays due to the practical budget of stage production..
• Since there is only dialogue, the author cant tell us the characters interior thoughts and feelings, so anything we learn about the character is indirect characterization we infer from what they do and say.

How to Cite

There are formalized methods of citing in MLA, APA, or Chicago style formats. For our purposes, were going to keep the citing very simple: just let your audience know where your information is from.

Indicate direct quotes by putting them in quotation marks immediately followed by an in-text parenthetical citation with the authors last name and either, for fiction and creative nonfiction, the page number; for poetry, the line number; or for drama, the line or page number, whichever the text provides. For videos like spoken word poetry, you can use time markers, such as (1:53) for one minute and fifty-three seconds. See examples of this below.

Examples of citing:

In Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Frost writes, Whose woods these are I think I know. / His house is in the village though (Frost lines 1-2). These first two lines show the start of his rhyme scheme….

In Split Mouth by Franny Choi, she says, My parents are from a split country (Choi 0:19). Here, she is introducing the idea of what splitting means on a literal level.

SparkNotes helped me understand the significance of setting in this story. On SparkNotes, it says, West and East Egg serve as stand-ins for the real-life locations of two peninsulas along the northern shore of Long Island (SparkNotes 1). This helped me understand that the locations in Gatsby represent places in the real world.

I struggled to analyze symbolism in this story, but talking it out with my brother helped me. My brother explained that the cup could be a symbol for….

You must cite anything that doesnt come from your own brain. Failing to do so is plagiarism (which Canvas scans for), which will be reported to ODUs Office of Conduct and could result in expulsion. When in doubt, cite.