Understanding SOAPStone: A Method for Close Reading in Literature Analysis

1. Close Reading The SOAPStone Method Jennifer Bennett Sanderson High School

2. Why do I need to read closely? • To gain the bigger picture • To recognize and appreciate the craft and specific techniques/tools of the craft • To understand that which sets art apart from “books” • What is “highly acclaimed”? • Why distinctions between “fiction” and “literature”? (See any major bookstore’s aisle categories.)

3. How? SOAPStone • Speaker • Tone • Organization • Narrative style • Evidence • Subject • Occasion • Audience • Purpose

4. Subject • What is the literal topic of this piece of literature? • What’s it all about? • The general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text • Summarize • What is the story? • Whether an essay, poem, play, novel, etc., it has a story.

5. Occasion • Where and when does it take place? • What is the rhetorical occasion of the text? Is it a/an— • Memory? • Description? • Observation? • Diatribe? • Elegy? • Critique?

6. Occasion, pt. 2 • Note the immediate occasion • The issue that— • catches the writer’s attention and • triggers a response • Note the larger occasion • The broad issue • The center of ideas and emotions in the work • Example: “Left at the Light” • Program for helping the homeless • Occasion: • Immediate—leaving (driving past) someone who was begging for money in the medium of a left-hand turn lane without helping • Larger—how to help the homeless without enabling any destructive behaviors/addictions a homeless person may have

7. Audience • Level of general knowledge • What do they already know? • Ex. Literary analyses; Process analyses • Level of diction • Slang • Informal • Formal • Ceremonial • What assumptions can I make about the intended audience? Does the author identify them?

8. Purpose • What does the writer accomplish with his or her literary work? • What appears to be the writer’s intent? • In what ways does the writer convey the message of the purpose? • How does the writer try to spark a reaction from the audience?

9. Speaker • The voice telling the story • Not necessarily the writer! • What assumptions can you make about the speaker? • Age? • Gender? • Social class? • Emotional state? (etc.)

10. Speaker, pt. 2 • Assess the speaker’s character • Supply evidence for your conclusions from the text. • Let the facts lead you to the speaker. • What does the speaker believe? • What biases may the speaker have? • What approach/appeal does the speaker make for his or her argument? • How do you know? Produce the EVIDENCE!

11. Tone • What is the author’s attitude toward the subject? • What emotional sense does the writer present? • How do the following tools/vehicles for meaning present tone? • Diction—word choice • Syntax—sentence construction & order • Imagery—concrete representations to connect the reader with the writer’s subject/pov/tone • From what source/s do the images come, primarily?

12. Organization • How does the writer organize/structure the text? • How does the writer arrange his or her content? • So? What effect does the organization have on the overall meaning of the work?

13. Narrative Style • How does the writer tell the “story”/unravel the subject? • What does the writer reveal? conceal? invert? subvert? • Is the writing dramatic (play) in nature, poetic, episodic, objective? • What point of view does the writer use? • SO WHAT?? What effects does the writer’s narrative style have on the work as a whole?

14. Evidence • The burden of proof is on you! • Pull specific examples from the text, using • direct quotations, • paraphrases, and • summaries to support your analyses/arguments. • Use specific • Literary devices • Grammatical devices • Rhetorical devices