ANALYSIS
Building a claim for meaning, significance

Once students are very familiar with what the object or work is and with its composition, they can propose an interpretation or claim about the significance or meaning of that object or some element of that object. If observations and inferences concern what the object or work is, with “IS-ness,” then interpretations concern what the object or work is about; they concern “ABOUT-ness.”

 

DEVELOP A PROVISIONAL ANSWER TO YOUR LINE OF INQUIRY

• Consider your best answer to your line of inquiry and phrase it as a statement.

• Your claim must be arguable. There must exist specific evidence that your claim is true, but that evidence cannot be conclusive or your claim would be a fact. There cannot exist specific evidence that your claim is false.

 

Questions to ask:

- What choices were made by the author of this text? How do you know? To what effect?

- What values did the author hold?

- What is the meaning / significance of the text or of some element of the text?

- What is the effect of an element or elements of the text?

 

REVISIT THE TEXT THROUGH THE LENS OF YOUR CLAIM

• Any claim you propose needs to be tested and revised. View the object through the lens of your claim and use the object to test your claim. Go back and forth between revising your claim and looking at the text.

 

Questions to ask:

- Does your claim explain what the text is or what the text is about?

- Is your claim easily demonstrated? Or is it non-obvious?

- Have you examined the text through the lens of your claim?

 

DEVELOP AN X BUT Y CLAIM

• Often it helps to start with a claim that is true and readily provable (X), and then propose an extension or complication (Y) as your main, more complex, less obvious claim.

• Basing your claim on a complication creates motivation for your argument. It means that you need to explain yourself. This also provides motivation for people reading your work because they need to be convinced.

 

Questions to ask:

- That claim isn’t really arguable. It’s pretty obvious. Could you start with that and propose an extension? A next step?

- Why should I keep reading if I agree right away with your claim?

- Take that claim and let’s assume it is true. How does that change the way we see this object or work? How does it speak to the craft or values of the artist?

 

 

IT’S A PROCESS!

Go back and forth testing the words you are using to describe the object or work against the details of the object or work itself.