deconstructing a non scholarly text

Locate a short, opinion- or position-based article or essay, preferably written by only one author.

  • Please do not select a peer-reviewed, scholarly source for this assignment.
  • Your selected article or essay should be from a popular publication (e.g. newspaper editorials, blogs, political pundit websites, or educational or health care activist organization websites).

Engage in a systematic process of closely reading the text. Attempt to derive a sense of meaning from the text that is not an explicit argument the author is making but is empirically grounded in the text. Examples of this sense of meaning might include:

  • Uncovering a political or ideological position based on the historical nature of examples used by the author
  • Determining an author’s value system around a particular issue by analyzing hierarchical structures in his or her essay’s organization