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Analysis Strategy Sheet 2. use these questions to help guide your reading in this class, especially with difficult articles. goal: to strengthen your ability to analyze
1. Title: ____________________ What kinds of associations are triggered in your mind by this title? Do you have any guesses or predictions as to what the show/performance/artwork/article/film/website might be about? 2. Author's Name: Have you read any other pieces by this author? What background information (Dancer? Marxist? Working in 1900? Contemporary? Avant-Garde? etc.) or context, if any, do you have that might indicate particular content matter or characteristic style? 3.Performance or exhibition date/ Copyright Date/place of publication or release: What do you know about the time period when and/or culture where this article was written/film was released? 4. Assumed audience. Given your answers to 1, 2 & 3 above, what kind of audience do you think the artist/author is trying to reach? 5. Opening paragraph/scene/entry to gallery: What are your impressions of the opening? Consider what you have learned so far. What do you think will be the main point the author or artist or curator will try to make? Any clues as to the main ideas or influences involved? For a film, what are your impressions of the film's opening sequence? What have you learned os far and what do you think might happen? If this is an academic article can you see yet *how* the author's main points will be argued? If you are visiting a gallery to see work by a single artist are there any clues as to how the show is being curated (pieces organized chronologically? Thematically? If this is a multi-artist show are connections being made between artists? Any clues as to what kinds of connections will be priviledged?) 6. Political point of view: Does the artist/author identify herself/himself as speaking from a particular perspective? Can you locate him or her with respect ot a particular theme in Arts and Ideas? What do you know about this perspective and how might it affect the kind of subject matter this artist takes up and the kind of work produced? (or what the author writes about and the kind of argument being made?) If the author/artist doesn't identify herself/himself in a particular way, can you make an identification based on evidence from the artwork or article itself? For example, if you think the text emerges from a Marxist, a postmodern, anavant grade, a feminist or (you get the idea) perspective, cite a relevant passage from the text to support your view or describe an aspect of the artork that supports your idea. 7.Argument Checklist for scholarly works (mostly not appropriate for artworks): What kind of evidence is the author/filmmaker using to support her/his views (other scholarly research? Interviews? Scientific studies? Something else?) How credible are the sources? (How) can you tell? Are there points which are simply assumed to be true (and not argued)? Is the argument internally cohesive? 8. The Conclusion: Do the conclusions follow from the evidence presented? Are the 'facts' open to more than one interpretation? Could a person arrive at a different conclusion using the same information? If so, give an example. 9. Overall Impressions and Course Context (for both scholalry and artistic works): A. What does this article contribute to your knowledge of arts and ideas? (both subject matter & style of presentation) B. How does this artist's/author's view and/or treatment of arts and ideas compare to other works on the course or other texts you've read/seen? For the field assignment, for example, the show is curated in such a way as to highlight the relationships between visual art and music. How does this treatment compare to the way this class has looked at collaborative or interdisciplinary work so far? (is one artist doing both art and music/ does one inspire the other? Were these artists working in groups? etc.) C. What assumptions of your own were challenged by this artist or argument? 10. Write a short summary giving your overall impressions of this piece, then choose a short passage (a paragraph or so), aspect of singel artwork/curated show or sequence that you think is crucial to your overall interpretation of the piece/event/text (as you've just described it). Type out the paragraph/passage you think is important (or describe the aspect of the atwork under consideration). Now, do a brief analysis of the passage/film sequence you've selected. Now, what is an analysis? Every one of your university courses asks for analysis, but students are rarely given instruction on what an analysis involves. So here's a helpful beginning (tape it to your computer!): An extended *analysis* involves thinking about (at least!) all of the questions you've just answered and considering relationships among all of these variables. Analysis, in other words = description (what the piece is 'about') + your response (loved it/hated it/rang true or didn't...) + genre and form (ethnography, interviews, theorizing from experience, meta-theory, documentary, artshow aranged chronologically etc.... how is the piece 'built') + theory (techniques? purposes? Social criticism? Emerges from a particular type of cultural theory?) + relationship to course materials + historical and cultural context (when written/produced? Why? What else was going on at this time? What were other artists or writers doing/saying? What ideas were in the air(from artists, Cultural theorists? Art historians? Anthropologists? Historians ...?) What was no one saying?) + artist/author's intentions (sometimes obvious, sometimes not -- and you will need to consider your perspective on the issue of the relative importance of the intention of the author vs the piece's effect upon the reader (you? Other readers?)) +new things it made you think + _____ If you can apply this analysis strategy (or some variation) to all your academic work, you are well on your way to *analyzing* material. You will need this skill for all of your university work.
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