Single-Source Analysis

What It Is and Why It's Useful

Single-source essays tend to involve some level of analysis of one (main) source, and they tend to be shorter than long. Those parameters leave a lot of room for variation, but in general these kinds of assignments are moving beyond summary, don't have comparative analysis as their focus, and aren't drawing on a lot of research. They're staying focused on one source (or even a part of a source), and this can be a useful way to allow students themselves to focus on:

  1. Elaborating on or digging into the complexities or confusing aspects of an argument
  2. Applying theoretical models or interpretive skills that have been introduced in a course
  3. Critiquing an argument's claim or its use of evidence
  4. Identifying underlying assumptions in a source or its possible implications

All of these approaches are more complex than summary, which remains primarily descriptive and stops short of the normative moves a singe-source analysis might get into. Limiting these moves to a single source has two immediate pedagogical advantages: It means that students are using a more straightforward genre to provide evidence of their ability to engage analytically with a given source, rather than providing evidence that they can (also) navigate a more complex form (such as comparative analysis or a research essay); it also means that instructors can offer more targeted feedback when the goal is to measure student's mastery of content and/or elements such as thesis, evidence, or counterargument, rather than also measuring mastery of form per se. Put another way: Is your main objective for students to learn the form itself, or for them to use the form as a vehicle for learning other things?

Typical learning objectives for single-sources essays: formulate analytical questions and an arguable thesis, establish stakes of an argument, summarize sources accurately, choose evidence effectively, analyze evidence effectively, define key terms, organize argument logically, acknowledge and respond to counterargument, cite sources properly, and present ideas in clear prose.

Common types of single-sources essays and related types: literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, primary source analysis (in History), critical assessment of an argument, etc.

How to Teach It: Framing + Practice

A single-source analysis suddenly has a lot more moving parts than a standalone summary, but any of your students who've taken Expos (or the equivalent) will be familiar with the moves that make up a typical version of this genre of assignment.

Framing

In terms of framing what doing a single-source analysis will look like, it's of course ideal to start with the prompt itself and talk about the other kinds of lower-stakes writing that will scaffold up to it (See the "Formative Writing Assignments" page in this section"). What this scaffolded sequence looks like will vary with context, but for a single-source analysis it might build on reading assignments and class discussions that lead to a full draft through lower-stakes writing exercises, such as summary, thesis proposals, introductions or outlines, and sample body paragraphs (that allow for practice with topic sentences, introducing and citing evidence, and providing analysis). In terms of framing the purpose of single-source analysis, it can be helpful to draw on the reasons why it's useful (see above), both as an end-unto-itself and as a means to other, more complex genres (such as research essays).  

Practice

Because single-source analyses have more moving parts, it's important that students get practice with as many of the parts as possible—practice that's sequenced effectively and that allows each practice step itself clearly to be part of "writing the paper." One version of a class-by-class process for a single-source essay might look something like this (Formative writing exercises are in bolded italics, and you can find examples of all of them at the "Formative Writing Assignments" page):

  1. In class:  Introduce prompt and analytical questions
    At home: Students read half of a text and come to class with analytical questions
  2. In class: Workshop analytical questions, class discussion, introduce summary
    At home: Students finish text and come to class with analytical questions and a draft summary
  3. In class: Workshop summary, class discussion, introduce thesis statements (as answers to analytical questions)
    At home: Students draft possible thesis statements (along with what the stakes of each one might be and what evidence from the source supports or complicates it)
  4. In class: Workshop thesis statements and look at models of introductions and/or analytical paragraphs; a review of citation practices in the style students are writing in
    At home: Students draft possible intro or essay outline
  5. In class:  Workshop intros and outlines; look at a model essay together with some focus on topic sentences or transitions and perhaps an element of prose style
    At home: Students work on full drafts of their essays.

This isn't a minimalist approach to a single-source assignment, nor is it a maximalist version either. What it's meant to show is that the process of a single-source analysis can be broken down into meaningful, manageable steps—and that it will typically take anywhere from 1+ to ~3 weeks, on average, to make it a learning experience that authentically measures students' progress in relation to the typical learning objectives for this genre of writing.

Tips

  • Try to steer students away from thinking of a proposed thesis as a commitment. Instead, help them see it as more of a hypothesis a) that has emerged out of readings and discussion and analytical questions, and b) that they'll now test through an experiment, namely, drafting. When students see drafting and revision as part of the process of inquiry—rather than as the before and after of inquiry—and are committed to acknowledging and adapting their claims to as much available evidence as possible, it makes writing assignments more scientific, more ethical, and more authentic. 
  • Make sure students have a sense of the kinds of evidence and analysis they should be engaging with in their essay. Should they be using certain kinds of evidence from the source or a certain number of examples?
  • As with other kinds of essays, be explicit about who the audience is. That is, should students assume the reader needs background summary and orientation of examples? Or should they dispense with that information because the imagined audience is presumed to be made up of "experts?"

Common Pitfalls

  • Writers often think of their thesis as a static claim that they're trying to "prove." This is especially true with relatively shorter assignments in the 5–8-page range (which for many students constitutes the longest papers they've written), where the shorter timeframe of the assignment and fewer sources makes it less inevitable that they'll run up against evidence that forces some tweaking or rethinking of their thesis.  Trying to "prove" a static thesis can lead to so-called "bending of sources" to fit an argument, or to cherry picking supporting evidence and either missing or ignoring relevant counterevidence. To avoid this scenario, a few things are helpful:
    • Starting with analytical questions keeps the focus on trying to answer a question that isn't "one-sided," and that means that one's thesis will by definition be a claim that can be reasonably answered in more than one way—and that makes counterargument (and, with it, a less static relationship to one's thesis) something that's always an active part of the writing process
    • Remind students that writing is part of the process of inquiry, rather than the result or mechanical output.
    • Make "acknowledging and addressing counterargument" one of the required elements of the assignment (i.e., part of the rubric).
  • Many students, even after meeting their expository writing requirement, will have a greater comfort level with certain approaches to evidence and analysis as well as form. For example, you might see students focusing (without any mention of it in the prompt) on an author's rhetorical features or the effectiveness of an argument based on the popular ethos/logos/pathos model of teaching writing in secondary schools. And you might see rigid 5-paragraph approaches to structure. There's nothing inherently wrong with these approaches, of course—especially given their utility in the context of timed in-class writing or standardized testing/AP exams. The tip for this pitfall is this: know that you'll see a lot more of these unexpected (and perhaps undesired) approaches if you don't get out in front of them and make it clear to students what kinds of approaches are best suited to the current assignment—and why.
  • Prior to college writing, a lot of the academic writing your students will have done was for their day-in-day-out teachers and for anonymous readers of AP exams or various applications. Neither of those scenarios is the mental model of "audience" we're asking students to adopt for many of their writing assignments in college, where we're more often asking them to write for something more generalizable, e.g., peers or colleagues or something more public-facing. Being clear with students about who their imagined audience should be is a great way to help students avoid making assumptions about several aspects of their writing, e.g., how much background summary to include, whether the reader (= the grader) "knows" the "right" answer to the prompt, etc. In many cases, what we want students to do with analytical essays is teach the reader something, and it's easier for students to take on that role as writers when "audience" (and the kind of authority the audience has) is explicitly addressed in the prompt or in class.

Advice on Timing

In the "Practice" part of "How to Teach It" here above, we laid out a timeline for a single-source analysis. That timeline itself roughly followed the "Sample Sequence of Formative Assignments for a 'Typical' Essay" outlined under "Formative Writing Assignments," and it spans about 5–6 steps. If your class meets twice weekly, that means a 2–4 week arc, and that's probably a good baseline for many single-source analysis assignments. For sections that meet once per week, the timeline will either probably need to expand more toward the 4-week side of things, or some of the steps will need to be combined or done asynchronously.

What It Can Build Up To

Single-source analyses can build up to other kinds of writing in a number of ways. For example:

  • They can build toward subsequent single-source analyses of other (possibly more difficult) sources
  • They can scaffold up to comparative analysis, where multiple sources are being analyzed in relation to each other
  • In a course where students will take a "deep dive" into a source or topic for their capstone, they can allow students to "try on" a source or topic to see if it's indeed something they want to research more fully.