1.9: Choosing Quotes and Analyzing a Text

What makes a quotation powerful?

Think of a song, video, visual, piece of writing, performance, artwork, speech, etc. that is powerful, moving, or meaningful to you. Why do you find this “text” powerful, moving, or meaningful?

Choosing a powerful quotation

Now, let's look an article from a textbook about DACA recipients or Dreamers, as shown in Figure 1.9.1.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): "Defend DACA" by Molly Adams via Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Try this!

Next read an excerpt on young immigrant DACA recipients (Dreamers) from a sociology textbook. As you read, choose a phrase, sentence, or a group of sentences that speaks to you. It should be something that is meaningful, surprising, or thought provoking.

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Reading from a sociology texbook: "The Dreamers" by Erika Gutierrez, et al.

On June 15, 2012 President Barack Obama issued a new law known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that allowed some individuals who were brought to the United States without legal papers as children to apply for a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to become eligible for a work permit in the United States. Recipients cannot have a criminal record and would not be able to become official U.S. citizens through this policy new law. This was a major victory for a young generation of activists dubbed Dreamers, after the failed DREAM Act (2001) which would have provided paths to citizenship through two years of military service or 2 years of college education. Though the policy did not apply to all who were brought as children the Migration Policy Institute estimates that over 1.3 million people qualified. As of March 2020, there are 643,560 DACA recipients who at least temporarily have some sense of stability and opportunity that they did not have previously.

DACA would not have been possible if it weren't for the brave young organizers and activists, such as Jose Antonio Vargas, and the organizations who created spaces for young undocumented people to share their stories and realize that they were not alone (see figure 1.8.1). They learned that there was nothing to be ashamed of. They also learned that sticking together as a group allowed them to call for equal rights" (Nicholls, 2014). For this subgroup of undocumented immigrants, the narrative was convincing: they were socialized in U.S. schools, were not familiar with any other country, they played by the rules, and therefore had the right to pursue the American dream.

According to a June 2020 Pew survey, 74% of Americans support granting legal status to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. without legal papers as children, but on September 5, 2017, President Trump announced an end to DACA (Edelman, 2017). Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions criticized DACA and claimed that it "denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens." This announcement sent the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients into panic-mode as their futures were uncertain yet again. Luckily for them, on June 18, 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that the way DACA was ended was unlawful. Most recently, on December 4th, 2020, a federal judge ordered a full restoration of DACA which means that first-time applicants will be accepted.

Responding to a quotation

What quote did you choose? Why does this sentence or group of sentences speak to you? Why is it meaningful, surprising, or thought-provoking to you? How might it connect to you (e.g., your experiences, values, beliefs), other texts (e.g., books, movies, articles), or the world (current news events, politics).

Write your answer using one of these sentence frames:

• When I read, "X" (Gutierrez et al), I wondered if Y.
• When I read, "X" (Gutierrez et al), I thought about Y.
• I chose: "X" (Gutierrez et al). My question is, Y?
• I chose: "X" (Gutierrez et al). I made a connection with Y.
• I chose, "X" (Gutierrez et al) because Y.

Analyzing a text

What is analysis?

When you responded to the quotation, you practiced analyzing a text. To analyze something means to study it carefully with the purpose of understanding it more deeply.

Now if you had to choose an example of analysis, what would you choose? A tweet, a TikTok video, a book or movie review, a podcast, a DIY video, a meme, or a hip hop song? If you answered "all," you are right again! Analysis is something that we do every day. It is not just an academic skill. We use it inside and outside the classroom.

When we are asked to analyze a piece of text, we want to explain the significance of it: what is the deeper meaning? Why does it matter?

We might:

• ask questions
• make predictions
• draw conclusions
• identify problems and propose solutions
• make connections (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world)
• discuss opinions
• agree/disagree

In academic writing, we might do the same kinds of thinking as we did above in Responding to a quotation. However, the sentences we write for analysis are usually more in the third person, and they usually don't directly talk about our experience as readers.

Compare these two ways of starting sentences:

Informal response:

• I chose this quote because I think...
• This story reminds me of...
• I wonder why...

Formal analysis:

• This situation is similar to...
• Because of the impact of X,...
• Here, the author seems to imply that...

Analysis example

Now let's look at an analysis of a quotation.

Notice This!

Read this quotation from a text about Dreamers as well as an analysis. As you read, think about these questions:

• Which is longer, the quotation or the analysis?
• In the analysis, how does the writer connect to their own knowledge, other texts, or the world?

Quotation

In "The Dreamers", Erika Gutierrez et al. state that, ”DACA would not have been possible if it weren't for the brave young organizers and activists, such as Jose Antonio Vargas, and the organizations who created spaces for young undocumented people to share their stories and realize that they were not alone.”

Analysis

As Gutierrez, et al. emphasize, it is critical that youth hear the voices of other immigrants who came to the U.S. without legal papers, so they feel comfortable to share their stories and demand change. In addition to Vargas, another courageous advocate is Reyna Grande. She wrote several books about her life because she could not find any books that told her story, she wanted other undocumented immigrants to know they are not alone, and her goal was to inspire them to follow their dreams. Grande also published a letter in The New York Times in response to a comment that Ivanka Trump made blaming the parents for the family separation at the U.S.-Mexican border. Grande shared how her father made the difficult decision to leave for the U.S. when Grande was two to give her family a better life, and that she had to beg her father to bring her with him at the age of nine. Grande pointed out that pathways are needed for migrant families to receive asylum, and that countries like Mexico should receive foreign aid to stimulate the economy. Writers like Jose Antonio Vargas and Reyna Grande have used their voices to advocate for change, and they are educating others on the injustices faced by undocumented immigrants.

Writing your own analysis

Let's practice analyzing a quotation:

Try this!

Choose one of these two quotations from “The Dreamers":

• "For this subgroup of undocumented immigrants, the narrative was compelling convincing: they were socialized in U.S. schools, were not familiar with any other country, they played by the rules, and therefore had the right to pursue the American dream.”
• "According to a June 2020 Pew survey, 74% of Americans support granting legal status to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally without legal papers as children, but on September 5, 2017, President Trump announced an end to DACA" (Edelman 2017).

Now, write a paragraph of your own analysis.

Analyzing a reading response journal

This chapter started with a Sample Reading Response Journal - an Undocumented Teacher's Story. Now that you have learned about analyzing text, let's return to that reading response journal.

Notice this!

Read the narrative and reading response journal on this page: Sample Reading Response Journal- an Undocumented Teacher's Story. Then, discuss the following questions with a classmate.

1. Which of the four responses are most interesting to you? Why?
2. Which of these methods of analysis did the journal writer use in each of the four entries?
   • ask questions
   • make predictions
   • draw conclusions
   • identify problems and propose solutions
   • make connections (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world)
   • discuss opinions
   • agree/disagree
3. Does the journal writer use the author's first name, last name, or both in the responses?
4. What reporting verbs does the journal writer use? (See 4.10: Language Toolkit for more on reporting verbs.)
5. Can you find examples of quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, and analysis in the four entries? Which does the journal writer use most? Why did the journal writer decide to use short quotations for certain phrases or sentences instead of just paraphrasing them?
6. Can you find examples of square brackets ([ ]) and ellipses (. . .) in the journals? Why did the writer use these? (See 4.10: Language Toolkit for more on square brackets and ellipses.)
7. In entry 2, the journal writer uses a quotation that includes the phrase "Gifted and Talented". How do they change the quotation marks to show that this is a quotation within a quotation?
8. In entry 2, when does the journal writer use present tense and when do they use past tense?
9. In entry 4, how does the journal writer change the pronouns "me", "my", and "myself" in the quotation? Why do they do this?
10. How could you use this example to help you with your own textual analyses?

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Works Cited

Gutierrez, Erika et al. "Social Change and Resistance." Race and Ethnic Relations in the U.S.: An Intersectional Approach. Libretext: 2021.

Licenses and Attributions

CC Licensed Content: Original

Authored by Marit ter Mate-Martinsen, Santa Barbara City College. License: CC BY NC.

CC Licensed Content: Previously Published

"The Dreamers" reading is adapted from "3.5 Social Change and Resistance" by Erika Gutierrez, et al. License: CC BY NC.