The month of love is a perfect opportunity for teachers to practice text analysis with students. The beauty of today’s Keeping Classics text analysis lesson is that it involves zero AI or ChatGPT. Zero.
You don’t need a chat bot to help you figure out what authors like Mark Twain have to say about subjects like love. In fact, you don’t even need a screen at all. Pencil and paper will do nicely.
Another benefit is the length of text. This activity is designed to practice quote analysis. Before assigning analysis of full essays or even paragraphs, start with analyzing quotes. Quotes are short enough that students are willing to move past the ever-growing hesitancy we see with students today.
TIP: Presenting this activity as practice creates low stakes and opens students to deeper risk taking. Ending the lesson with a comparison/contrast activity ensures stakes remain high enough that students will still put in the effort required for learning.
This activity can be completed individually or in groups.
In case you’ve forgotten how to practice analysis without plugging a prompt into a chatbot, let me help you out with these Mark Twain quotes. You’ll find a free download of the quotes and an analysis guide here.
BONUS: I’ve also used this same strategy for my entire Gatsby unit. Keep scrolling to download that unit, too.
The instructions for quote analysis is pretty straight forward:
- Provide students with one of the following Twain quotes on the subject of love.
- Students will practice annotation.
- Students will paraphrase, demonstrating understanding of the quote’s meaning.
- Students will analyze the structure and word choice of the quote.
- Students will compare and contrast analyses.
Let’s uses this quote as an example:
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. –Mark Twain’s Notebook
Annotation Practice: Instruct students to note what they observe regarding structure and word choice. This is not the time to interpret nor analyze. Observation only. Students might note the quote consists on two sentences. The first sentence is a compound sentence joined with a comma and a coordinating conjunction. Students might then observe that the second sentence also seems to have two clauses, but they might not know how to classify the word until. At this point, insert parts of speech bonus lesson.
Who doesn’t love a good bonus lesson!
The second round of annotation focuses on word choice. Students might focus on which coordinating conjunction joins the two clauses in the first sentence. When a two sentence quote contains a word depicting contrast in the first sentence, what might you expect to find in the second sentence? An explanation or defense of the contrasting idea? A rebuttal?
Looking at that conjunction leads the reader to examine what ideas are being contrasted: swiftest and slowest. Of course, students will want to look at word choice in the second sentence, too. Usually the phrase quarter of a century stands out. Some students point out the descriptors, really and perfect.
Paraphrase Practice: After annotation, students move to the paraphrase phase. It’s as simple as it sounds. Rewrite the idea in your own words. Reminds students that a paraphrase should maintain similar length, meaning, and tone.
Writing the paraphrase after the annotation helps students consider word choice, which is a great segue into analysis.
Analysis: Write answers to the following questions to analyze Twain’s quote on love:
- How might love be considered a growth?
- What is the significance of the word, swiftest? How is it different from fast which is the often considered the opposite of slow?
- How do the modifiers, really and perfect, effect the meaning of Twain’s sentiment? How might removing the words effect the sentiment?
- How does the phrase quarter of a century effect the sentiment? What are some option for communicating the same amount of time? Would those words or phrases effect the emotional impact of the quote?
- Reverse the order of the clauses and/or sentences. How does the effect the power of the message?
- Ultimately, what makes the quote meaningful and memorable? Support your answer.
Compare/Contrast: The final step is comparing and contrasting analyses. A gallery walk is a great way to do this. In a gallery walk, students post their analysis on the wall. The class reviews all the posts, leaving comments or engaging in discussion to compare answers.
Another option is to use shoulder partners. Use a Venn diagram to record similarities and differences in annotations, paraphrase, and analysis. If quote analysis is done as a group project, try the jigsaw method.
The jigsaw method will have one appointee from Group A move to Group B to lead a discussion on Group A’s analysis of the quote. Make sure each group has a visiting appointee from another group. Group B should ask questions regarding how Group A came to their conclusions. The session ends when the group and the visitor have a thorough understanding of the similarities and differences in the analyses. The visiting appointees return to their original group and everyone shares what they learned.
Once students are comfortable with analyzing quotes, they can apply the same approach to longer texts. I have used this quote analysis method to facilitate my entire Great Gatsby unit–Nine chapters, nine quotes. Focusing on analyzing one quote per chapter led to deep discussion of Fitzlgerald’s language, 1920s social issues, and, of course, the American Dream. It was one of the greatest Gatsby experiences of my entire teacher career. You can find that lesson here.
It is good for students to step away from screens. It’s necessary that we continue the explicit teaching of critical thinking skills such as text analysis, especially with so many teachers teaching students to depend on AI and Chatbots to aid students in understanding text. This quote analysis method requires students to think critically. It reminds teachers that using ideas composed by authors of classic texts is still important in both comprehension and analysis. In fact, it might be more important now than it has ever been.
I challenge you to close the Chromebooks and try this analysis method. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised of what students are capable of when they can’t rely on ChaptGPT and instead must think for themselves.
Grab a free download of these Mark Twain quotes plus an analysis guide here.
Let me know how it goes.
