Three pages, double-spaced with one-inch margins and a 12-point font.

Description: For this assignment, you will formally analyze the object you have selected for your “Essay in Five Parts.” In order to do so, you will want to pay careful attention to all the aspects of the object – material, spatial, and temporal – and your physical and emotional responses to it.

Requirements: In this paper, you will produce a physical inventory of the object, make deductions, speculate about what your object signifies, and establish a program of research. For an example, please reread Jules Prown, “The Truth of Material Culture,” pages 6-13.

This assignment requires little to no historical research – it focuses on close looking, verbal description, and critical analysis. In other words, your attention remains on the object rather than its cultural and historical contexts (that will come in the next part of the assignment, the Object File).

*Please note: we will not accept this assignment until you have completed your object seletion.

PLEASE take full advantage of the Writing Center. For most of you, this is a completely new kind of writing that will feel uncomfortable to even the most seasoned writers among you. Keep in mind that writing tutors are not editors and do not simply proofread papers, but help with any and every stage of the writing process, from brainstorming, researching and drafting to revising and citation. You can make an appointment by calling 573-882-2496. You may also submit drafts to the Online Writery at https://writingcenter.missouri.edu/.

Evaluation: This paper is worth 50 points and read with the following considerations in mind:

1. Description: Did you thoroughly describe the object, paying careful attention to its dimensions, weight, materials, and construction?
2. Deduction: Did you contemplate what it would be like to use or interact with the object? Did you discuss your sensory, emotional, and intellectual engagement with it?
3. Speculation: Did you entertain hypotheses about what your object signifies, or what it expresses about the world in which it was made and used? What tensions, complexities, ambiguities, and fears does it respond to or negotiate?
4. Program of Research: Did you think creatively about what research might be necessary to test you interpretive hypotheses? What do you anticipate looking at or reading to unpack the meaning of your object?

Pre-writing Strategies
1. Take time to look your object and take notes on your observations. Consider the following questions when scrutinizing the piece:
a. Dimensions: What is the size of the object? How much does it weigh? Is it flat or three-dimensional? Does the piece look as heavy or as light as it is? Why or why not?
b. Materials or Medium: What materials did the artist or manufacturer use? What are its advantages? Its limitations? Why select these materials rather than others?
c. Visual Elements:
i. Line: Are the lines thick or thin? Vertical, horizontal, or diagonal? Are they straight, curved, swirling, continuous, or broken? Strong or delicate? Do the lines direct your attention to one place or another?
ii. Texture: Does the piece appear smooth, or does it have texture? Is it rough, coarse, abrupt and uneven? Is it fine, continuous, and subtle?
iii. Color: How does the artist use color? Do the colors contrast with each other, or is there a gentle and gradual transition? Is the color realistic or expressive? Warm or cool? Bright or muted? Calming or dramatic? And to what effect?
iv. Space: Does the space appear deep or shallow? Why?
v. Movement: Is movement suggested in the work? If so, how? If not, why?
d. Composition, Design, or Fabrication: How is the work arranged? Is it balanced or asymmetrical? What is emphasized, and what is downplayed? How do the different parts fit together? How does the eye move across the piece? How does the composition control that movement?
e. Content or Subject Matter: Are certain subjects represented on or by the object? Is it based on a literary or biblical text? A historical or mythological event? A personal or communal experience? A particular location? Or something else? How does the subject matter relate to the object’s dimensions, materials, visual elements, and composition?

Some of the tools mentioned above might not be applicable to your object; use your best judgment on which need to be addressed. For clear explanations of the above, please go to: “Understanding Formal Analysis,” The J. Paul Getty Museum, http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html.

2. Look at the notes you took when describing the object. What connections do you see between the aesthetic choices made by the artist producer and your personal response to the work? Then, consider your notes on the work’s content. How do the formal elements relate to the work’s subject matter? Now, invert the question: how does the work’s subject matter inform the work’s composition and your response to it? The relationships you see between and among the form and content of the work, as well as your responses to it, establish the foundation for your analysis of the object.

3. Organize your observations into prominent ideas or themes. These ideas or themes can serve as the topic sentences for your paragraphs. Then, use your visual evidence, the work’s subject matter, and your interactions with the object to support that theme.

4. Use your ideas and themes to develop a hypothesis about your object’s cultural significance.

5. Suggest a program of research you might follow to determine if your hypothesis is correct. This might include: comparisons with other objects; the larger aesthetic, cultural, and historical context of the object; other art, films, music, political events, or social movements that took place at the same time your object was produced or received; and/or articles and books on the subject; etc.

Practical Grammatical Tips for Academic Prose
*Avoid colloquialisms (“you know”) and contractions (“is not” as opposed to “isn’t”)
*Try to avoid the passive voice, a form of sentence construction in which the one performing the action IS NOT the subject of the sentence.
Passive constructions are easy to spot; look for a form of “to be” (is, are, am, was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle (a form of the verb often, but not always, ending in “-ed”). For example, replace “The old building has been torn down” with “The building commission tore down the old building.”
*Do not confuse possessive, plural, or contracted forms, especially of pronouns. Remember, for example, that “it’s” equals “it is.”
*Avoid beginning sentences with “and” or “but.”
*You can use the first person; however, use it sparingly. The reader knows you are speaking, so employ it for emphasis. Writing “I think” and “I believe” too many times weakens your argument.
*PROOF READ your paper in order to catch missing or misspelled words, as well as the words spell-check does not identify or changes inappropriately. Some suggestions: read it aloud, read it backwards, or change the font.