WRITING A COMMENTARY FOR ESTUDIOS CULTURALES

a. IDENTIFYING & CLASSIFYING

What kind of text is this? Non-fiction: historical, legal, administrative, political, religious, other;
Fiction: prose, verse, drama; (genre and subgenre).
Write an introductory paragraph identifying:
Title
Date
Author
What you know about the circumstances of
its composition

Central topic
Protagonists
Relevance of the text for its culture/ period

b. ORGANIZATION: STRUCTURE & EXPOSITION OF IDEAS

Taking into account:
How many parts is the text divided into?
How is the presentation of the issue structured?
How are the protagonists characterized?
Does the text present any relevant formal/stylistic features that should be commented?
Discuss and illustrate with quotations from the text:
What is the speakers point of view on the issue?
How is this made evident in the text?
c. CONTEXTUALIZING
Explain thoroughly, quoting from the text when necessary:
How is this issue representative of its historical period?
Why is this specific fragment relevant?
What trend does the presentation of the issue articulate (mainstream, marginal, partisan, neutral,
etc.)? How is this made evident in the text?
Does this presentation follow the official /traditional discourse of the period regarding that
specific issue? Why is this so?
Can this account of the issue be compared with other sources/versions of the same event?
Apart form the central one, what other interesting questions are raised in this text?
What were the historical/political/social consequences of the issue discussed here? How did the
conflict/process end?
d. CLOSING
Explain:
How important is this text/author in the history of a given English-speaking culture/society?
What extra information can you add to improve the understanding of this text?