Description
Semiotics and Deconstructing Texts
This 2-page mini-paper is the first step to writing your term paper. In this short essay
you will analyze a popular text using the critical methods you learned in our study of
semiotics and deconstruction. These tools include: analyzing how binaries work, how
difference gets set up, how hierarchies are established, how norms get naturalized, etc.
Your mini-paper should lay out the following elements: DO NOT USE ANY FORM OF PLAGIARISM OR AI GENERATED WORK, IT WILL BE DETECTED AND PUNISHED.
*CUT AND PASTE THESE INSTRUCTIONS INTO YOUR PAPER*
EACH HEADING SHOULD BE PRESENT IN YOUR PAPER
1) Introduction: set the scene and state your thesis: What is your main argument? State
your text and why it’s important to study. Preview your two-three main points. Your
analysis should deal with key issues of the course (power, identity, culture, race,
class, gender…)[1-2 paragraphs]
2) Denotative Reading: Describe your text. Describe specific details from the text you
have selected. Focus on something small that you can write about in one paragraph – a
particular scene from a movie trailer or TV show, the details you see in an
advertisement, a sampling of lyrics and a scene from a music video. Focus on the
“signs” or meaningful symbols (such as flags, differently raced and gendered bodies,
signifiers of class like gold, rings, fancy cars, clothes, settings like the beach, a club,
house or nature): all of these signs convey meaning. Here you spend a paragraph
simply describing these signs at work in the text. [1 paragraph]
3) Connotative Reading: Analyze, deconstruct, and critically read the text. Your
goal in this paragraph is to analyze the signs at work in your text that you described in
the previous section. Your tools include: analyzing binaries and hierarchies;
representations of race, class, gender, sexuality; semiotic arrangement of signs. Your
guiding questions are: What meanings does the text convey? What myths give the
signs meaning? Provide evidence and examples from the text to support your
argument. [2 paragraphs]
4) Incorporate one concept from the reading (hegemonic masculinity, controlling
images, whiteness, trace, slippage, etc.—any concept you choose!). Define (use
author’s words, then your own interpretation) and apply the concept to your critical
reading of the text. How does the concept help you analyze the text? Use MLA
format to cite [2 paras]
5) Conclusion: restate thesis; review two-three main points.
Specifications:
Your paper should be 2 pages double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman. Use MLA
for citations. Your paper should be uploaded to turnitin as a Word.doc or
Word.docx
Your paper should be organized: it should be easy follow your line of thinking. Read
your paper out loud. Have at least one peer read your paper and give feedback prior to
turning it in.
Use good argumentation skills: support your claims with evidence from your text
and provide good reasoning for your arguments.
