EN 111 – Getting a Handle on Assignment 6

1. What question are you trying to answer in your paper? When you chose your topic, what was the interesting thing that sparked your interest?

2. What are the general rules that apply to your phenomenon/text? (Describe the context.) What is odd/anomalous/different about the part of that phenomenon you’re looking at?

3. What does the culture gain by keeping those rules invisible? What myths, values, and/or beliefs do those rules uphold?

4. How does the anomaly/oddity (your specific area of focus) subvert those rules? Or does it?

5. What evidence will you use? Remember that nothing has to be the way it is, and that all choices come from a huge set of options. What signs will you look at, and what messages do they send to the culture?

Reread Signs of Life introduction (pp. 1-19) for a reminder about how semiotic analysis works. A summary of the chapter is available under the "Writers' Tools" link: Semiotics.