I have a dream
Analyzing a Text: Choosing a Focus, Creating a Thesis
What we’ve done so far:
• Summarized the text
• Outlined what the text says
• Examined the text’s argument
• Identified some of the text’s rhetorical devices
All of these are raw material for your text analysis essay. To write your analysis, you will:
– Choose some from what we’ve done
– Add some of your own analysis
– Create an essay analyzing the text
3 Possible Ways to Focus your Analysis:
1. How the text works:
a. How does the text get its meaning across? What strategies does the writer use? How do those strategies relate to the writer’s audience?
b. How does the text’s language (words, phrases, sentence structures) affect our reading and understanding of it?
c. How does the structure & organization of the text develop the meaning?
2. What the text means:
a. Use your outline to trace the development of the meaning from beginning to end, and how the meaning builds & develops (or goes down sidetracks or blind alleys, maybe)
b. Follow the logic of particular passages: Is the logic consistent from part to part?
c. Examine the language: Does the writer use “loaded” terms that influence how we read the text & show the writer’s stance or bias?
3. How well does the text work?
a. How well does the text achieve its purpose?
b. How effectively does it meet the needs of its audience or affect the audience as the writer intended?
c. How well does it use the conventions or Key Features of its genre (Argument)?
d. How well does the author convey hisstance?
e. How well does its design help it achieve its aims?
Forming a Thesis: Template 1
“In ____(title)________, __(author)____ uses ________________________ to argue that _________________________. This (set of strategies, language, organization, structure)
– creates these effects
– shapes our understanding in these ways
– assumes that his readers know X or believe Y
– Is effective or ineffective because ____________.”
Forming a Thesis: Template 2
“In ____(title)________, __(author)____ uses (describe the organization, logic, or terminology) to argue that ____________.
The essay’s organization/logic/terms influence how we understand it/respond to it in the following ways: ___________.
This organization/logic/terminology is effective/ineffective because __________.”
“I Have a Dream” speech Rhetorical Situation
When analyzing a text, it’s important to understand the rhetorical situation (see Part 1 of the Field Guide for more information). Knowing about the author, for example, can help you determine his or her credibility, identifying the audience can help you determine what their needs and expectations were and why the author addressed them in the way he or she did. Understanding the purpose of the speech can help you determine whether or not it achieved its goal and analyze the ways in which the author attempted to fulfill that purpose.
Text
The text in question is a 17-minute speech written and delivered by Dr. King. The basic medium of the text was an oral speech that was broadcast by both loudspeakers at the event and over radio and television. Dr. King drew on years of training as a minister and public speaker to deliver the speech. He also drew on his extensive education and the tumultuous history of racial prejudices and civil rights in the US. Audiences at the time either heard his speech in person or over radio or television broadcasts. Part of the speech near the end was improvised around the repeated phrase “I have a dream.”
Author
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most iconic leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He was an African-American Baptist minister and prominent civil rights activist who campaigned to end segregation and racial discrimination. He gained inspiration from Howard Thurman and Mahatma Gandhi, and he drew extensively from a deep, rich cultural tradition of African-American Christian spiritualism.
Audience
The audiences for “I Have a Dream” are extraordinarily varied. In one sense, the audience consisted of the 200,000 or so people who listened to Dr. King in person. But Dr. King also overtly appealed to lawmakers and citizens everywhere in America at the time of his speech. There were also millions of people who heard his speech over radio and television at the time. And many more millions people since 1963 have heard recordings of the speech in video, audio, or digital form.
Purposes
Dr. King’s immediate purposes appear to have been to convince Americans across the country to embrace racial equality and to further strengthen the resolve of those already involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Audiences’ purposes are not as easily summarized. Some at the time may have sought to be inspired by Dr. King. Opponents to racial equality who heard his speech may have listened for the purpose of seeking to find ways to further argue against racial equality. Audiences since then may have used the speech to educate or to advocate for other social justice issues.
Setting
The initial setting for the speech was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963. The immediate community and conversation for the speech was the ongoing Civil Rights Movement that had gained particular momentum with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, which Dr. King helped direct. But the enduring nature of Dr. King’s speech has broadened the setting to include many countries and many people who have since read or listened to his speech. Certainly, people listening to his speech for the first time today in America are experiencing a different mix of cultural attitudes toward race than as present in America in 1963.
Taken from the Purdue OWL website, https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/08/