Close Reading/ Textual Analysis

You have been reading texts deeply throughout our class meetings to construct interpretations of characters, dialogues, and narrative. In this assignment, you will demonstrate your ability to interpret texts by looking closely at the language and context of a text we’ve read.

Use Othello as a primary text. You may also compare more than one text, though if you make that choice, please limit your comparison to no more than 25 lines (which need not be contiguous) of a Shakespeare play with another Shakespeare play or with an adaptation. You are welcome to analyze and write interpretations of characters, the dynamics between characters or their surroundings, specific scenes, stage directions—anything in a primary text or texts.

Your main task is to justify your interpretation through direct textual evidence and explanation. You will not use secondary scholarship in this assignment.

Please submit your analysis in MLA format using formal academic language.

These assignments fulfill course outcomes 1, 3, and 4 on the syllabus.

1. Produce an analytical interpretation of a text through close reading,

2. Organize an essay by means of well-developed and coherent paragraphs;

3. Produce mature, coherent, persuasive prose that follows the conventions of academic writing;