SOAPSTone

1. SOAPSTone Close Reading and Tabbing

2. Close Reading Reading slowly and carefully Reading with a pen, a notebook, tabs, high lighters Keeping track of questions you may have Reading the text as a whole vs. looking for specific elements of the text Analyzing your own thoughts, writing, questions about the text in order to construct patterns, devise themes, and establish SOAPSTone.

3. ANNOTATE! Passive Vs Active Passive readers look at a book with the TV. on, controller in one hand, cellphone in the other while checking Instagram, Tweeting, and taking a nap Active readers underline key passages, circle words or concepts they do not understand, and make connections with literature they have read as well as their own realities

4. Look for Patterns Observe the interior of the passage. Find patterns and statements or objects that repeat Write down the names of characters and draw arrows to illustrate how those characters are related and how they move through the text. Use the margins and inside covers for your maps and drawings Analyze your thoughts and drawings-look for more information in the reading to add depth to what you understand and resolve that which you don’t understand

5. For Example… What metaphor does Busta Rhymes repeat? Animal Metaphors! A Pattern of metaphors is called a CONCEIT! You just became a literary genius!

6. Acronym S)Speaker O)Occasion A) Audience P) Purpose S) Subject T)one

7. Speaker The speaker is the voice that tells the story. Although the Speaker is telling the story, he may NOT be the protagonist

8. Tyler Durden From Fight Club

9. Frank From Donnie Darko

10. To Consider… Is the voice of the text a fictional character? How does the speaker tell the story? What type of language does the speaker use? How does the speaker influence the reader to think a certain away about the events in the text?

11. FINALLY!!! Does the subject or the voice describing the subject change---or shift at all during the story? Those shifts are VERY important! They are often overlooked textual elements that speak to a characters growth and development.

12. Occasion The occasion relates to the time and place in which the text is set. The reader NEEDS to understand the text in context-meaning the situation that led the writer to write his text. Understand that this component HAS to be present. Literature does not exist in a vacuum, it is a product of a writer living in a very certain and very important environment.

13. Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

14. What elements contribute to making the occasion? Modernity and Zeitgeist

15. Keep in mind… The way in which you perceive a text is almost COMPLETELY dependent upon your cultural zeitgeist. AND The way in which past and future audiences perceive meaning in a text is dependent on their cultural zeitgeist JUST LIKE The zeitgesit for the author almost COMPLETELY structured and informed his work What does that mean for us, the readers??? When we find some element of a text significant it is because some aspect of our cultural zeitgeist motivates us to think so!

16. Audience Based on the language, subject matter, and content-what is the target group of readers? Who is the author attending to address? Understanding audience is key to gaining insight as to the author’s purpose in writing a text. You must understand that for a text to create real change then it must get into the hands of those who can truly make that change. You should also note who the text is not intended for…

17. Blackalicious-Alphabet Aerobics Who is the intended audience? What techniques are used to pique the interests of the targeted audience? Who isn’t the intended audience? How can you tell? What does the artist have to gain by making this particular song for his audience?

18. Watagatapitusberry Who is the intended audience? What techniques are used to ‘arouse’ the interests of the targeted audience? Who isn’t the intended audience? How can you tell? What does the artist have to gain by making this particular song for his audience?

19. Do not Underestimate the Significance of Comedy!!! An author’s use of comedic elements can enhance your understanding of who he is targeting as his intended audience…

20. Many people think or assume comedy is an emotional process-it is not! Comedy is an intellectual process that draws from deeply-rooted psychological traits… Comedy is UNIVERSAL! Why do we laugh? What do comedy and tragedy have in common? How do we discuss comedy?

21. Understanding WHY we laugh (or don’t) tells us a lot about us as an audience! Understanding WHY other audiences laugh (or don’t) tells us a lot about them!

22. There are several “levels” of comedy-we call this The Comedic Ladder

23. 1. Low Comedy Low Comedy is full of -Dirty jokes, gestures, scatological humor (Netflix Clip), and sexual overtones -Low comedy focuses on exaggerating or understating physical features. (Example from President’s Correspondence Dinner: Jimmy Kimmel: Mr. President, you may want to cover your ears for this next joke-if that is humanly possible.” -Slapstick, prop comedy, collisions and physical comedy

24. 2. Farce A Farce, or something that can be considered farcical: -Is full of coincidences, mistimings, and mistaken identity -Contains characters are “puppets of fate”-twins, born to the wrong class, unable to marry, too poor or too rich -May feature characters that have lost there identity due to some accident of fate

25. 3. Comedy of Manners A Comedy of Manners focuses on witty, clever speech-typically among the upper class or rich. Insults, put-downs are traded between cliques and groups. In particular, outsiders are viewed as witless and are deemed made to feel ashamed or embarrassed that they do not possess the attributes of the “In-Class”

26. 4. Comedy of Ideas Characters engaged in a Comedy of Ideas typically argue about politics, Religion, sex, marriage and culture (art/music/literature). They use witty, clever language to mock or demean their opponents.

27. Soooo BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ANY CUES THAT HINT AT THE AUTHOR’S INTENDED AUDIENCE! Why?

28. Understanding Audience Understanding the audience is one key in figuring out the author’s intended message. For example, knowing that Douglass was writing to Abolitionists about the philosophical and humanitarian crimes associated with slavery; Faulkner was writing to showcase the relationship with between actual human thought and literature; Shakespeare was writing in order to ask questions about existence that had never been asked before; Kurt Vonnegut wrote to illustrate the goodness of humanity; O’Brien wrote to tell us a “true war story”; Spiegelman wrote to explicate his personal and familial understanding of the Holocaust…

29. Knowing an audience allows to access these emerging themes in literature-without an audience these great truths would vanish in the wind

30. It’s Tricky! (Tricky Tricky Tricky) Keep in mind that an author might use Low Comedy in order to illustrate a philosophical, academic, or intellectual point Or, vice versa… An author might depict characters normally associated with farce or low comedy engaged in a Comedy of Ideas.

31. Purpose After you consider the occasion, audience, and speaker you can start to make assertions about what the author intended his work to do. What logic, thesis, and/or arguments are buried within the text? What would the author want you to do the second after you finish reading his book?

32. To establish purpose, an author uses a blend of rhetorical techniques that rely on 3 elements of rhetoric

33. Elements of Rhetoric: Ethos The intent to build up the credibility of the speaker so that you trust him more. Ethos heavily relies on REPUTATION and on attacking the reputations of rivals.

34. Elements of Rhetoric: Pathos The passionate and emotional elements of an argument. This type of argument is supposed to inspire you to feel for and identify with the speaker.

35. Elements of Rhetoric: Logos The logical aspect of an argument meant to appeal to your sense of reason.

36. Arguments From Al Pacino’sDevil’s Advocate Speech Ethos Logos Pathos

37. Subject The general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text. How do you know this? How has the subject been depicted? Why would the author choose to present this topic? In what style or format has the subject been presented? Why/how does the presentation of the text craft and form the subject?

38. by William Carlos Williams This Is Just To Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably Saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

39. From Chapter 1 of Sören Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death Chapter 1: That Despair is the Sickness Unto Death Despair is a Sickness in the Spirit, in the Self, and So It May Assume a Triple Form: in Despair at Not Being Conscious of Having a Self (Despair Improperly So Called); in Despair at Not Willing to Be Oneself; in Despair at Willing to Be Oneself. Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self. In the relation between two, the relation is the third term as a negative unity, and the two relate themselves to the relation, and in the relation to the relation; such a relation is that between soul and body, when man is regarded as soul. If on the contrary the relation relates itself to its own self, the relation is then the positive third term, and this is the self. Such a relation which relates itself to its own self (that is to say, a self) must either have constituted itself or have been constituted by another. If this relation which relates itself to its own self is constituted by another, the relation doubtless is the third term, but this relation (the third term) is in turn a relation relating itself to that which constituted the whole relation.

40. Got All That? The subject of literature can be extremely easy to spot, understand, and discuss… The subject of literature can be incredibly difficult (impossible?) to spot, understand and discuss… The key is to understand that the author has intentionally buried his subject or intentionally placed his subject front and center-both strategies pertaining to subject are important elements in discussing literature

41. Tone Tone refers to the attitude of the author as expressed in his text. To track tone one must track the specific word choice used by the narrator or speaker within a text.

42. We examine the types of words (diction), word arrangements, and techniques involving the manipulation of the sound and meaning of words because…THESE TECHNIQUES ARE ALL INTENTIONAL AND ALL SERVE A PURPOSE IN THE TEXT! Does the author use….

43. Alliteration? Repetition of sounds at the beginning of a string of words (as in a tongue twister)

44. Macbeth (Act 4, scene 1) “Double, double toil and trouble;     Fire burn, and caldron bubble.” What is the effect of the alliteration in Macbeth?

45. Allusion Reference to a previous text-typically biblical… But an allusion can simply be a reference to any previously existing text, song, speech, or document… In this case, the song from Harry Potter is a lengthy allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

46. Cacophony? Combinations of sounds and words that contain harsh consonant sounds (K, P, Q, P) and an absence of “soothing” vowel and consonant sounds (O, S, L, M). Also used in music… Throw a bag of plates, silverware, and glass cups down some stairs and VOILA! You will have cacophony.

47. What is the effect of the Cacophony in… Dillinger Escape Plan “43% Burnt”

48. Onomatopoeia? When something or some action is named for or after the sound it makes… Buzz Hiss Belch Bang Clang Pop “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (slogan of Alka Seltzer, U.S.)

49. ? What is the Intended Effect of Onomatopoeia? Under what Circumstance should a writer use Onomatopoeia?

50. Comedic Effect