Progression 3: Reviewing in Contexts
Progression Overview: For this progression you are asked to review and reckon with a chosen film or performance.  You’ll look at this film or performance from a variety of perspectives and contextual vantage points in order to understand something about its  larger significance to and impact on our culture, as well as what it can tell us about its medium or genre  and the creative process itself.
The essay should develop an interesting and coherent idea and argument about the value and larger significance of the chosen film or performance.  The movement of the essay should be  driven by questions and claims that come out of analysis of evidence.  The larger argument/idea should be built from smaller, more specific claims about specific moments from evidence, and this idea/argument should  develop over the course of the essay (something needs to shift, change).
Your essay must include vivid, specific and trustworthy representations of evidence.  You need to provide thorough (yet concise) representations of the moments from the film or performance you are analyzing (use the charts you made to help you hold yourself to representing with detail and also with an eye towards idea).  This will necessitate using quotations in order to help the reader understand the reason behind and justice of your claims.

The choices you make in terms of form and style should serve your idea  (in the way that the formal aspects of your chosen film/performance inform the meaning of that film/performance).  You might need to experiment with form in order to develop your idea.  Consider how the shape of  your essay, your word choice and choice of figures, metaphors images  helps develop your idea.  Consider always your sentences and your paragraphs.  An essay moves one sentence at a time, and every sentence is important.

Practicalities:
Final Draft Due 12/11
6-8 pages double spaced, 12 pt font.
MLA Format
one primary film/performance.  Essay must include a detailed representation of/analysis of/ reflection on the chosen film or performance.  This should take place over multiple paragraphs and in several parts of the essay.
three ancillary  sources  sources that provide context.
At least one should be “about” the film/ related to the filmmaker– original sources (for instance, if the film was based on a novel, you might bring in the novel itself), reviews, profiles, interviews, other films the filmmaker has made/been involved
At least one should pertain to a context adjacent to the film (not directly “about” the film or filmmaker)
All sources should be credible, bylined, from a reputable publication.

Category: Essays