Write a 2-3 page analytical reading response to the creative nonfiction essay “Time and Distance Overcome” by Eula Biss. Focus your response on something specific about the rhetoric used in this piece, such as its particular tone, structure, diction, style, etc. Cite specific moments in the text and focus your analysis on making claims about how they work, effectively or not, and why Biss chose them as the method for writing this piece.
Before you begin, give the piece a close reading. Examine the choices being made and contemplate why. Read through once, twice, again. Notice the ways that Biss pulls the rug out from under her readers in order to add emotional impact, and the weight of discovery to her piece. Identify the places where, upon re-examination her statements of research are imbued with layers of additional meaning. Pay attention to the major shifts and structural changes in her piece. When do these occur, how do they effect the reader, why does she choose to do it in this method?
If you do not have a particular area of the piece in mind that you’d like to respond to, feel free to use one of the questions below as the jumping point for your analysis. Remember to stay focused and keep your analysis digging deep. A quick and cursory examination of a bunch of components would be much less successful than an in-depth, well-explored examination of one.
Question Options for Framing Your Reading Response:
How does Biss’s lack of transitions and short, fragmented paragraphs work to develop a particular tone and mood in this piece? How does this choice work uniquely with her subject matter? Why?
Return to the beginning of the piece and identify moments, such as the opening line, that now function both literally and metaphorically due to Biss’s unique method of organizing the essay’s true intent. Unpack how they work, and the effect they have on the reader. Analyze and investigate what these seek to accomplish and imply on a larger scale.
Biss ends her piece with a personal anecdote about regrowth and healing. What is she trying to achieve with this choice? Make claims, based on evidence from earlier in the piece, as to whether this rhetorical choice functions successfully or not.
Remember: if you have a different area you’d like to focus on, feel free, as long as your analysis is critical and text-specific.
Be careful to write this response as one comprised of analytical claims. Do not spend time summarizing the plot of the narrative or reacting to whether or not you liked it on a personal level.
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