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Alright, yes. My close reading for this week was over an article written about Lady Gaga. As cliche as that may seem, it was a good article and it had many literary elements that made the article good. Judging by the fact that the piece was taken from Vogue magazine, the writer Jonathan Van Meter successfully included the type of details, imagery, and diction that enabled his article to grab the reader's attention. I'll start with the details. First of all, I would just like to remind you that this is a Lady Gaga article, which I'd assume most of the American population is more than familiar with. So it's easy enough for Van Meter to incorporate details such as the way Gaga first entered the room for the interview and exactly what she is wearing from head to toe to already have the reader's full attention and understanding. Although Van Meter did include such details, him including descriptions that went even more in depth made the article more interesting and easier to relate to. By using details such as distinguishing Gaga's "day look: a slinky black-and-white striped dress,four-foot train and shoes that...make her feet look as if they are screwed on backward, [and] ... Bride of Frankenstein updo, with a brooch perched on top" Van Meter adds great emphasis to this piece and helps the reader not only realize how eccentric Gaga is, but also ties them into easy access to the imagery of the scene. Van Meter does a wonderful job in including certain details that accentuate the way the reader interprets the writing and their ability to picture the situation that he has created. Certain words that Van Meter incorporated into his writing also help grab the reader's attention. By using words such as "mincing" to describe Gaga's entrance into the room and her "messianic zeal", Van Meter is able to portray a feeling of praise and respect towards Gaga while also reflecting a sense of sophistication towards his writing abilities. Van Meter really takes advantage of the power of word choice to further the excitement of the topic of the article and by doing this, has enabled his readers to have a better experience of reading his piece. Through reading this piece, it can easily be seen through the usage of detail, imagery, and diction that Van Meter not only genuinely admires the pop star, but also is an experienced writer himself.
You have a lot of support for your claims about details and diction, but I feel like your evidence for imagery gets a little obscured by the details section. That is really the only thing that I found that you could improve on. Since you mention details, imagery, and diction in your introduction, your argument would be stronger if every technique was somewhat equally supported. Other than that, you have a convincing argument for the point you are trying to make.
ReplyDeleteOn the whole, this is very good analysis. You including sound details throughout and explained them well. One thing to look for is how often you use "Van Meter". Try to find some other words to replace the authors name, as it pops up quite often. I do agree with what Saloni said, you could keep it a little more organized but that doesn't take too much away from the rest of the writing.
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