The Five Moves of Analysis (aka The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Learn) 1. Suspend Judgment: Set aside your likes and dislikes, your agreeing or disagreeing. Say to yourself, “What I find most interesting here is...”. 2. Notice and Focus: Simply put, pay close attention to details. “What do you notice?” What is significant/interesting/revealing/ strange. Slow down and take your time here. Don’t jump to interpretations before you’ve exhausted the details. Uncertainty is good. 3. Look for Patterns: Start sifting through the text looking for Repetitions, Strands, Binaries, and Anomalies. Repetitions:  sheep dog in "How to Talk to a Hunter" Strands:  Animals in "How to Talk to a Hunter," alcohol in "Sonny's Blues" Binaries:  Light/Dark in "Sonny's Blues," young/old in "One of Star Wars, One of Doom" Anomalies:  Mysterious notebook in "One of Star Wars, One of Doom," tin of chocolates with Santa Claus "fondling" children painted on it in "How to Talk to a Hunter" 4. Make the Implicit Explicit: Explain to the reader what the details or the patterns imply. Explain your thought process. Pull out the implications and show them why you think they are “folded in” to the meaning of the text or image. What does this mean and So What? Why is it important? 5. Keep Reformulating Questions and Explanations: What else might this detail or pattern mean? How else could it be explained? What details don’t fit my theory? Can I adjust my theory to better fit with this? Prepping the Final Paper Take a minute to re-read the assignment sheet for Paper 3. Then choose which prompt you would like to focus on for your paper. Once you have chosen your prompt, I would like you to go through the book and identify the scenes that you think link to your topic in an interesting way. Now… 1. List the scenes you have chosen, e.g. “Scene #1: The scene in which Oscar is taken into the cane and beaten.” 2. Carefully gather details from your chosen scenes. These should include both individual details you find interesting or bizarre, AND binaries, strands, repetitions, and anomalies. Use the skills we’ve practiced all quarter long to gather these. Write them down. For example, “Oscar’s hands are ‘seamless’ in the dream.’ 3. Now spend some time pulling multiple implications out of as many details as you can. For instance, “Seamless hands = brand new, no history, no fingerprints so no traces, like a blank page.” 4. Choose your six juiciest, most interesting and analytically rich details and type them up in a list that includes implications. 5. Use your detail-analysis to develop a working thesis. This is your own analytical theory about what is going on in the scenes you’ve chosen. What have you uncovered and why is it significant? Write that thesis down. My answer 1. Scene #1: The scene in which Oscar’s dead at the beginning. #2: The scene in which the narrator is not Yunior in chapter 2. #3: Narrating the identity of Yunior. #4: Using footn ...

1. The Five Moves of Analysis
(aka The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Learn)
1. Suspend Judgment: Set aside your likes and dislikes, your
agreeing or disagreeing. Say to yourself, “What I find most
interesting here is...”.
2. Notice and Focus: Simply put, pay close attention to details.
“What do you notice?” What is significant/interesting/revealing/
strange. Slow down and take your time here. Don’t jump to
interpretations before you’ve exhausted the details. Uncertainty
is good.
3. Look for Patterns: Start sifting through the text looking for
Repetitions, Strands, Binaries, and Anomalies.
Repetitions: sheep dog in "How to Talk to a Hunter"
Strands: Animals in "How to Talk to a Hunter," alcohol in
"Sonny's Blues"
Binaries: Light/Dark in "Sonny's Blues," young/old in "One of
Star Wars, One of Doom"
Anomalies: Mysterious notebook in "One of Star Wars, One of
Doom," tin of chocolates with Santa Claus "fondling" children
painted on it in "How to Talk to a Hunter"
4. Make the Implicit Explicit: Explain to the reader what the
details or the patterns imply. Explain your thought process. Pull
out the implications and show them why you think they are
“folded in” to the meaning of the text or image. What does this
mean and So What? Why is it important?

2. 5. Keep Reformulating Questions and Explanations: What else
might this detail or pattern mean? How else could it be
explained? What details don’t fit my theory? Can I adjust my
theory to better fit with this?
Prepping the Final Paper
Take a minute to re-read the assignment sheet for Paper 3.
Then choose which prompt you would like to focus on for your
paper. Once you have chosen your prompt, I would like you to
go through the book and identify the scenes that you think link
to your topic in an interesting way. Now…
1. List the scenes you have chosen, e.g. “Scene #1: The scene
in which Oscar is taken into the cane and beaten.”
2. Carefully gather details from your chosen scenes. These
should include both individual details you find interesting or
bizarre, AND binaries, strands, repetitions, and anomalies. Use
the skills we’ve practiced all quarter long to gather these.
Write them down. For example, “Oscar’s hands are ‘seamless’
in the dream.’
3. Now spend some time pulling multiple implications out of as
many details as you can. For instance, “Seamless hands = brand
new, no history, no fingerprints so no traces, like a blank page.”
4. Choose your six juiciest, most interesting and analytically
rich details and type them up in a list that includes implications.
5. Use your detail-analysis to develop a working thesis. This is
your own analytical theory about what is going on in the scenes
you’ve chosen. What have you uncovered and why is it
significant? Write that thesis down.
My answer

3. 1. Scene
#1: The scene in which Oscar’s dead at the beginning.
#2: The scene in which the narrator is not Yunior in chapter 2.
#3: Narrating the identity of Yunior.
#4: Using footnotes to explain Trujillo at first. Footnote 1
#5: “A Note from Your Author”
#6: Footnote 17
#7: Footnotes about Beli
4.
#1. Yunior highlights this novel has magical realist which is not
created based on the reality. For example, he told readers about
fuku and zafa, curse and counterspell at the beginning of the
story. Then he also wrote “…that was one detail I couldn’t
change, just liked the image too much…”
#2. The novel is narrated mainly in the third person narrative,
but it is adopted in the first person in chapter two. The change
of narrators expresses that the main narrator would like to
represent the experience of the parties, avoiding his own subject
consciousness interfere narrative objectivity of the story.
#3. The narrator as scholar’s rigorous attitude provide a large
amount of historical information, especially the related
information with historical figures and historical events in
Dominica.
#4. The words of the footnotes with a clear subjective, which is
clearly different from the ordinary footnotes of conventional
historical narrative, it means the narrator reconstructs other’s
history through the imagination. For example, when Yunior
used footnotes to explain Trujillo at first, “Trujillo, one of
the… A portly, sadistic, pig-eyed mulato who beached his skin,
wore ruthless brutality…”
#5. Yunior uses the historical references and footnotes make
readers attach importance to history and cultural that some
people would like to avoid. When he narrated Beli’s story that
was she first met the Gangster, he used Beli’s own voice to

4. narrate something occasionally.
Yunior learned from Beli’s unfortunate, he decided to face the
past and overcame suffering. Therefore, the narrative shows the
tragedy reproduction and makes Yunior reflects himself and
gets new life.
5. I chose the power of the narrator as my study objective. I
think the special narrative style and footnotes are main
characteristic of this novel. Meanwhile, the power of the
narrator highlights the abundant connotations of the theme of
the novel.
Paper 3: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
5-6 pages, double-spaced.
The final analytical paper for this course represents the
culmination of the analytical thinking and writing skills we
have been developing over the entire quarter. As such, your
paper will be expected to present a sharp, analytically
interesting thesis, solid detail analysis, and effective paragraph
structures. The subject of the paper will be Junot Diaz’s novel,
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
For this paper, write an analytical essay in which you address
the following questions:
The Power of the Narrator: Yunior, the narrator of most of the
novel, frequently interrupts the story to insert footnotes or to
comment on the action. Occasionally, he even calls attention to
the fact that the novel itself is made-up and fictional. Look, in
particular, at “A Note From Your Author” on pages 284-85 and
footnote #17 on page 132. Write a paper that explains the
significance of these narrative intrusions. What is the effect of
the occasional insertions? How might they illuminate one of

5. the novel’s larger themes? (In writing the paper, focus on a
small number of good examples that you analyze carefully.
Don’t try to cram in a long list of examples that are not well
analyzed. Do more with less.)
Do not use any outside sources for this essay. This paper
should represent your own thinking about this novel, not that of
some other critic. As for your audience, imagine that you’re
writing to someone who has read the novel, but is not in our
class.
Criteria for Evaluation
· A strong thesis statement that makes a clear, provocative,
arguable claim.
· Effective, well-structured introduction and conclusion
· Strong topic sentences that make a clear, provocative sub-
claim of the thesis and organize the body paragraphs.
· Specificexamples from the novel that you carefully analyze
using the tools we have practiced in the course to support your
claims.
· A developedargument based upon a few good examples, rather
than a list of unanalyzed details or a mere plot summary.
Remember, do more with less.
· A coherent argument with a logical progression held together
by strong transitions.
· Clear and correct quotation, diction, punctuation and grammar.
What Your Intro Needs to Accomplish
· Identify the main issue/theme that you will discuss and say
why it matters.
· Introduce your text, or texts.
· Offer the thesis that your paper will develop

6. · Funnel smoothly from a slightly broader opening to the thesis.
Example:
Girls on Film: Patriarchal Sexism in The Day of the Locust
In The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West returns again and
again to the theme of violence against women. Although the
novel as a whole deals with the evils of a superficial Hollywood
culture, West is particularly interested in its treatment of
women. He takes time to reveal the numerous ways in which
they can be victimized by the rampant sexual exploitation of
Hollywood. But he is also not afraid to assign blame for this
situation. With the novel’s unflinching description of Tod
Hackett’s violent sexual fantasies, West places the blame for
Hollywood’s treatment of women right where it belongs: on a
patriarchal culture of spectatorship and objectification.
Reverse-Engineering an Intro:
1. First, develop your thesis.
"With the novel’s unflinching description of Tod Hackett’s
violent sexual fantasies, West places the blame for Hollywood’s
treatment of women right where it belongs: on a patriarchal
culture of spectatorship and objectification."
2. Determine the larger theme/issue engaged by the thesis:
What is the larger theme the thesis is engaging?
Violence against women
3. Link the broader theme to the more specific thesis: How can
I connect the broader theme to the more specific thesis?
Hollywood culture portrays violence against women.

7. Novel is about Hollywood culture.
Novel deals with violence against women.
4. Write the intro.
Constructing an Effective Paragraph
A strong analytical paragraph should begin with a topic
sentence that lays out a claim and should then go on to support
that claim with detail-analysis. The sample paragraph below
does just that by beginning with a good topic sentence. But it is
also a great example of how to handle the detail analysis in the
body of the paragraph. So read over the hints and then read
over the paragraph. (The paragraph is taken from the middle of
a paper about threats to masculinity in Toni Morrison’s novel,
Beloved.)
How to Pack a Paragraph with Tasty Detail-Analysis
1. Focus on analyzing one or two key pieces of specific
evidence (i.e. generally a short quote) that relate to the topic-
sentence claim.
2. Actually show the reader the evidence, don’t just summarize
or refer to it in passing.
3. Briefly contextualize the evidence (i.e. set it up) so that the
reader knows where it appears in the narrative.
A well-executed paragraph:
The novel also underscores the damage to Paul D’s masculinity
by contrasting his own lack of power to the freedom and
strength of the barnyard rooster named “Mister.” After being
caught trying to escape Sweet Home, Paul D was shackled and
tied up like an animal. “I had a bit in my mouth,” he admits to
Sethe, years later (82). This iron bit, of course, is part of
Schoolteacher’s desire to equate slaves with animals. Since you
can use a bit to control an unruly horse, Schoolteacher believes,
you can use a bit to control an unruly slave. But one of Paul

8. D’s most vivid memories from that dark time at Sweet Home is
of the rooster “Mister.” What really got to him wasn’t the bit,
he tells Sethe, it was “Walking past the roosters looking at them
looking at me” (85). Mister, in particular, seemed to mock Paul
D. “He sat right there on the tub looking at me. I swear he
smiled” (85). This is particularly difficult for Paul D because it
seems to him that even this barnyard animal is higher than him.
Even the rooster has a sense of pride and power. “Mister, he
looked so… free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher” (86). The
rooster is “stronger, tougher,” than the slave. The bird seems to
exhibit those specifically masculine qualities that Paul D has
had taken from him. In this way, Paul D’s sense of himself as a
man suffers from a double-attack: he is both a slave to another
man, and he seems to have less self-respect than a simple
animal.