How to Structure Your Commentary
A
commentary, written or oral, is an analysis of a poem or prose passage. You, as the analyst, take things apart to
examine the individual pieces that make up the whole.
A
commentary will attempt to explain the significance of a portion of a literary
work, BY PROVING SOME SORT OF POINT. The
point you are trying to make may have to do with characterization, plot, theme,
style or other literary concerns.
Before
writing your commentary, you must focus in on what you wish to convey to the
examiner about the literary work. Once
you have a focus, you must attempt to make some kind of point about the
literary work in your commentary.
The
point you are trying to make should be the main idea of your commentary. This is called a THESIS STATEMENT. Your thesis statement is your opinion;
remember, it is not a fact. The thesis
is what you will spend the rest of your commentary trying to prove. Your job as analyst is to convince the
examiner that your opinion is correct; you must prove that your thesis
statement is true based ON EVIDENCE FROM THE TEXT!
YOUR
THESIS STATEMENT (main idea, focus, opinion) MUST BE CLEARLY STATED IN YOUR
INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH. The thesis
should be fairly broad. Stay away from
narrow statements of facts that can be easily proven or disproven. Give yourself a challenge—and the examiner
will be engaged. Usually (but not
always), the thesis statement is the sentence that ends your introduction.
In the
paragraphs which follow the introduction, you must provide evidence (examples)
to prove your point. You must be very
specific about how the evidence you are offering supports your opinion. You cannot prove your thesis (which is an
opinion) by offering other opinions.
You must draw your evidence from the text. You should quote passages from the text to
prove your point; just remember that you must explain their significance,
explain how they relate to your thesis. When you incorporate evidence into your
commentary, you must be sure to explain it adequately. You must always bring it back to your thesis
statement. You must continually explain
HOW and WHY it means what you say it means.
Everything
in the MAIN BODY of the commentary must relate to the main point you are trying
to make—YOUR THESIS. If you write/say
something that has little to do with your thesis, you have two options: expand
and modify your thesis to accommodate that information, or do not include it
and find other evidence that does support your thesis.
Finally,
you must write/say a CONCLUSION (a final paragraph), which ties everything
together. The conclusion is essentially
a mirror of your introduction. Just as
your introduction led the examiner in to the thesis, the conclusion
leads out from it. Often, the
arguments presented in the body are summarized and the thesis is restated as
proved. And somehow you should make your
paper sound complete. It is a lot like
the closing statement lawyers make at the end of a trial—a summary of all the
evidence presented and a restatement that all the evidence points to the
logical conclusion that what they said at the beginning (their thesis
that the defendant was either guilty or innocent) is true. Try leaving the examiner with something
additional to think about (but still something that is related to the thesis of
the commentary.)
_____________
INTRODUCTION: (1
PARAGRAPH)—tell the examiner what your paper is about, NOT necessarily in this
order. You need to include the
following:
§ A way to draw the examiner
in
§ The author
§ Title (underlined or
italicized, if written)
§ General statement about the
literary work (sometimes)
§ Necessary background
information about the story (very little!!)
§ Thesis statement (your
opinion, main idea, or focus)—this may be controversial—should be fairly
broad—has a point to prove
MAIN
BODY: these paragraphs should answer the
question, “why?” Not necessarily in this
order, you need to include the following:
§ Specific examples to prove
your point
§ Quotations—passages—descriptions—comparisons
§ Explanation of the significance
of your examples in terms of your thesis statement (in other words, analyze
your examples. How do they
fit in with your main point?
§ Explanation of how your
analysis relates to your thesis statement
CONCLUSION: (1 paragraph)—Tell the examiner what you told
him/her and leave him/her with something to think about. Not necessarily in this order, you need to
include the following:
§ Your thesis, restated to
emphasize that you have proven your point
§ A summary of your main
points
§ A way to leave the examiner
thinking about the marvelous ideas in your commentary
ANOTHER PRAGMATIC METHOD TO
STRUCTURE YOUR COMMENTARY
1. Create
your thesis statement.
2. Make
an outline of how you want to present your commentary.
3. Address
the literary devices. HOW does
the writer create the effect in the passage?
4. Do
color-coding with highlighters.
5. Make
a decision (your point, opinion, focus) and support it.
6. Highlight
2 different aspects/slants at work in the passage.
7. Next,
articulate the author’s purpose.
(Authors have 3 purposes.)
§ Characterization—to
draw characters
§ To
establish the setting
§ To
elucidate the theme
8.
Next, write the thesis statement.
9.
The Thesis Statement is composed of 3
things:
§ Define
the author’s purpose
§ Identify
the 2 slants/aspects in the passage
§ State
the purpose and slants/aspects precisely and clearly
10.
Once you have a clear thesis:
§ Make
a topical outline of paragraph development
§ Choose
10 topics of paragraph development
§ Use
6 topics of paragraph development which are applicable to your passage
§ You
need 6-8 body paragraphs which are well-developed to both slants/aspects.
§ You
need to have at least 2 paragraphs on two main characters where you articulate
what each of the 2 characters’ attitudes is.
1.
write maybe two sentences in the introduction and then
write your thesis statement
2.
use diction to support characterization
3.
tell what characterization is being revealed to us—this
must be rooted in the text!
4.
give tonal quality of dialogue (what’s the tone—use
adjective(s) to describe the tone)
5.
is there any juxtaposed positioning of phrasing?
6.
save the last body paragraph for the paragraph on theme
(which is the author’s purpose). Deal
with all ramifications of the theme in this paragraph.
§ In
the first paragraph, start where the prompt asks you to start. Use transitional phrases to introduce
each of the items you discuss in the succeeding paragraphs.
