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English 85: The American Novel, Sections A & F

BENITO CERENO EXPLICATION QUIZ FEEDBACK

Overall: Explication can be a hard skill to master, especially under timed conditions, so congratulations on finishing your first assignment! Make sure to keep working on your explication skills in order to prepare for the final-you should practice by engaging in careful, close reading for all the novels. Your extra credit explications were overall stronger than your quizzes-evidence of the importance of practice.

TOP FIVE AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT (from your quizzes and the extra credit explications)

1. Don't talk about everything. You should not list all that you've found or talk about all the themes that are relevant to the passage-focus on a few significant details that relate to your main idea/argument. If it doesn't relate to your main idea/argument, don't mention it. The strongest explications go into depth about a few points instead of trying to cover everything.

2. Use specific details from the passage. It's not enough to tell us what the passage is arguing or what theme it is representing, you need to explain how it is doing so by referring to specific words, phrases, or other literary characteristics (sentence structure, tone, etc.). Every sentence in your explication should have something to do with the passage.

3. Don't quote and run. Don't' say that "it is clear" or "it is evident" or that "obviously" a quote relates back to your argument-you need to explain how a quote is relevant to your argument. You should also not "drop" literary terms into your explication without explaining them; don't just tell us that the passage has a certain tone-you need to show that you know what tone is by explaining what in the passage contributes to that tone and how that relates to your main idea/argument.

4. Length doesn't matter, but organization does. The strongest explications are not the longest, but they are the most organized. They state their argument (how the passage illustrates the novel's stance on a specific cultural issue or theme) near the beginning and organize their examples into logical groupings or patterns.

5. Write clearly and concisely. Perhaps the greatest myth believed by college students is that academic writing is supposed to be complicated and wordy. Good university writing portrays complicated ideas, but it does so using clear and concise prose. If you need suggestions on how to write more clearly, check some of the writing links on my website, consult a book like John Trimble's Writing with Style, visit the writing tutors in Covel Commons (with a sample of your writing), or come talk to me in office hours (with a sample of your writing).