- For your first assignment you will need to offer a close reading of a passage from The Fellowship
of the Ring. Below, you will find (1) a prompt to help you frame your close reading, (2) guidelines
about what constitutes a good close reading, (3) general guidelines for this specific assignment,
and (4) a rubric for how your close reading assignment will be graded.
(1) Argument 1 Prompt: How does The Fellowship of the Ring go about constructing an
alternate reality and in what ways might that reality be limited or constrained? (Hint: your reading does not need to answer this prompt the prompt is just here to help guide you as you look for possible passages to select, providing a range of concepts to consider as you hunt for problems, conflicts, or tensions in the text.)
(2) Guidelines for How to Approach a Close Reading:
a. Find a passage where the text is conceptually complicated or difficult a passage
that raises questions and that will require interpretative analysis to make sense.
i. (Choose only one passage to focus on, and make sure it is a rich passage,
one with multiple components to analyze.)
b. Now, pick that passage apart analytically analyze it.
i. Analysis here means working step-by-step through multiple components.
ii. Look at how the different parts of the passage relate to one another so as
to clarify what they mean.
c. Now, think about how other parts of the text might relate to the different
components of the passage you are analyzing, and use those relations to add
further depth and more clarity by contextualizing the passage.
d. Finally, drawing on all these steps, write out your close reading. A good close
reading will:
i. Identify a rich, complex, and problematic passage in the text.
ii. Make an interpretative claim about that passage (argue for an
interpretation of what it means or how it functions).
iii. Use textual evidence to substantiate that interpretative claim.
iv. Articulate the steps in your reasoning how you get from the evidence on
the page to the interpretation you make. Remember that you should write
as if your reader is likely to be resistant to your perspective. You have to
convince your reader, which means you have to walk your reader through
the logical steps that lead from the evidence you cite to the conclusions
you draw from that evidence.
v. Specify why the interpretative claim should be interesting or significant to
your reader.
(3) Practical Logistics for Assignment:
a. Your close reading should be ~1 page long (about 300 or so words), written in
standard Times New Roman font, and double spaced.
b. Submit on Canvas as a word document or a pdf by the end of week 3.
c. Include citations for all quotations and a bibliography for all works cited.
What Students Are Saying About Us
.......... Customer ID: 12*** | Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"Honestly, I was afraid to send my paper to you, but you proved you are a trustworthy service. My essay was done in less than a day, and I received a brilliant piece. I didn’t even believe it was my essay at first 🙂 Great job, thank you!"
.......... Customer ID: 11***| Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"This company is the best there is. They saved me so many times, I cannot even keep count. Now I recommend it to all my friends, and none of them have complained about it. The writers here are excellent."
"Order a custom Paper on Similar Assignment at essayfount.com! No Plagiarism! Enjoy 20% Discount!"
