Purpose: This assignment requires you to “read like a writer,” to read critically, and to integrate credible research with your own interpretation to arrive at a solid conclusion pertaining to the text you are analyzing.
Instructions: Pick one of your favorite pop culture texts and analyze the language, structure, and craft of the text, to make a claim and draw connections between the style and the author’s purpose.
Research: Find, cite, and incorporate 3 credible, relevant sources
Description
Whether we realize or not, popular culture is a pervasive influence in all our lives. It is the source of entertainment, controversy, and even academic study. In this paper you will evaluate and analyze a text from popular culture; you may choose a text that addresses a topic related to our Preface text, but you are not required to do so. You will begin by selecting one television series, film, popular song, video game, music video, comic book… on which to focus. Your goal is to analyze the language, structure and craft of the text, to make a claim and draw connections between the style and the author’s purpose. Research
For your research, you may start with the resources for English 101 students. You may also want to search the websites of major publications such as the New York Times or Entertainment Weekly. You could research what others have had to say about your chosen text, or you could research what experts have had to say about what is  portrayed in your text.
Audience
This essay should be directed to actual and implied audiences: both your fellow students and professor as well as an imagined audience to whom your chosen pop culture text might appeal. For example, you might choose a movie to analyze. In that case, your paper might be geared toward others who have seen that movie. You might choose a song or album by a particular musician. In that case, your readers would be fans of that musician. Make your essay meaningful and appealing to others.
Overview
This assignment asks you to select, engage critically, and analyze a text from the world of popular culture. The goal of this assignment is to encourage you to think critically about the text, conduct a small amount of relevant research pertaining to the creator’s (or creators’) background, genre-specific context, style, or content, and to write a cohesive paper synthesizing your research with your own interpretation. Your paper must:
• identify the text and its creator(s), and discuss its social context/situation;
• contain a clear thesis, or claim regarding the text: make a specific argument about how the text reflects society and why it is so popular.;
• summarize the text(s) and incorporate evidence in the form of quotes and paraphrasing
• develop the analytical argument offered in your thesis, including careful evidence from the primary text and from secondary sources; and
• cite your research appropriately according to MLA format.
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