Chapter Three: Process Analysis
The techniques used to develop a process analysis closely resemble those used in narration, and all effective process pieces involve some physical description. Thus it makes sense to discuss this chapter soon after you have completed the first two.
A good way to introduce process analysis is to distinguish it from pure narration. Remind students that, while arranged in chronological order, a process essay tells how something happens while a narrative essay emphasizes what happens. You might also discuss the two common purposes for which process analysis is used: to give instructions and to explain how something happened.
For the purposes of their own writing, remind students that the thesis for a good process-analysis paper usually includes a statement of purpose; it explains why a process is or was important, why it occurred, or why it should be undertaken. In addition, you might advise them to begin such papers with a broad overview of the process so that readers may more easily comprehend how each of the steps explained relate to the procedure as a whole and lead to its end result.
Whatever the subject, recommend that writers of process analysis adhere to strict chronological order, providing transitions and other elements to signal the movement of time in a logical, easy-to-follow manner. Students also need to know that each step in the process--even if it occurs simultaneously with another--should be explained in a separate paragraph. In addition, you might say a few words about clarity. Remind students that an explanation that is perfectly clear to them might confound a reader who has little knowledge of or training in the subject. Suggest that they have a layperson comment on their work before they prepare a final draft. Finally, recommend that they pay special attention to word usage in such papers soas to eliminate or provide definitions for technical vocabulary and jargon.
You may want to begin with Marius's "Writing Drafts." With its straight-forward style, it serves as an excellent model for students. In addition, of course, the author's advice to new writers can add much to an in-class discussion of the writing process. As such, you might want to assign this brief essay early in the term. Follow this with Goodheart's "How to Paint a Fresco," a short but engaging explanation of Renaissance painting.
From there, you can discuss process analysis as a tool for explaining natural phenomena. Diane Ackerman's "Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall" is a logical starting point. It is complete, interesting, and easy to follow. Moreover, it makes an excellent subject for a summarizing exercise. You might then consider Hubbell's "Honey Harvest," an accurate and fascinating study of bee-keeping, its virtues, its rewards, and its perils.
A good follow up is Petrunkevitch's "The Spider and the Wasp," which illustrates techniques students can use to explain how something happens. First published in Scientific American, theessay is somewhat technical in parts, and the phenomenon it depicts is hideous. However, it is written in a humanistic style,
which students should appreciate. Mitford's essay complements the one by Petrunkevitch nicely. Like "The Spider and the Wasp," it is gruesome, but it explains a human ritual rather than a natural process. It also differs from that essay because of its purpose and sharp tone.
Alexander Petrunkevitch: The Spider and the Wasp
Questions for Discussion
The first three items under Content are important to understanding purpose and introducing techniques for writing process-analysis papers. The next two will help you explain the function of description and other kinds of prose in scientific writing. Even more important, items d and e usually elicit very complete and accurate responses from students, serving to increase confidence in their
ability to read and attempt technical writing.
Having the students outline Petrunkevitch's essay to identify its major points and trace its organization is also helpful. You can do this by recording important information about the essay's structure on the board during class discussion or by asking students to undertake this kind of analysis in a short paper to be submitted
the day you take up the essay in class. If you have time, consider analyzing Petrunkevitch's language and tone (item i). Doing so will show that even scientists, whom most students see as calm, cold and detached, can get excited about their work.
Engaging the Text
Item a is useful for beginning class discussion of this long and technical article. If you have a small class, you can ask all students to read their paragraphs so that they can see what a range of interpretations are possible. Discussion can then center on reaching a consensus. With a large class, you can divide students
into groups and ask them to read and come to a consensus within each group; each group can then report to the others at the end of class. Item b encourages students to observe behavior that they may never have noticed before.
Suggestions for Sustained Writing
The first suggestion is self-explanatory and usually elicits some detailed responses. You might want to remind students that the assignment is a good opportunity to seek information about their subject in the college library. This advice also applies to item c. In fact, if one of your course objectives is a research paper, mini-assignments like these will help students become familiar with
the library in a natural and even pleasant way. However, be sure to review a few simple methods for including and documenting secondary sources before encouraging students to use them in these projects. Item b is another effective writing prompt in response to which students might want to do library research. Given the nature of the assignment, however, you may have to review comparison/contrast organizational techniques before students begin their papers.
Jessica Mitford: Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain
Questions for Discussion
Mitford's purpose is, of course, to enlighten, satirize, and persuade. Most students will realize this almost immediately. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to discuss the essay's objectives so as to show how versatile a tool process writing can be. Doing so also provides a natural way to discuss Mitford's tone and distinguish it
from what we see elsewhere in the chapter. You may also want to address this selection to show how writers of process analysis use transitional words and expressions to create logical connections and indicate the passage of time.
Items c and d provoke interesting class discussion. Before reading this essay, few students will have realized that our funeral practices differ markedly from those in most of the rest of the world, and they will want to argue on one side or the other about Mitford's point of view.
Under Strategy and Style, you might discuss questions having to do with the author's use of quoted materials. In fact, Mitford's essay illustrates techniques that students can use when incorporating researched materials into their work.
Of particular interest is Mitford's brilliant choice of language to create irony and sarcasm (items j through n). Take some time to ask students how such language affects them and whether in using it the author has succeeded in winning them to her side. Before doing so, however, make sure your students recall the meaning and uses of irony, a term you probably have explained already, and try to
get them to see the difference between irony and sarcasm.
Engaging the Text
Item a is obviously aimed at allowing students to have some fun at the expense of Mitford, and it gives them an outlet for expressing any discomfort they may feel toward the content of her essay. This suggestion may lead to the more serious Item b and help students articulate, on a gut level at least, what they think about this essay.
Suggestions for Sustained Writing
The first two prompts get students to analyze this selection and, in the case of item b, another essay closely. The third allows students to collect research that will help them respond to Mitford or to discuss a similar subject from their own perspective. All three are accessible to most students and result in effective papers.
Richard Marius: Writing Drafts
Questions for Discussion
"Writing Drafts" is a small treasure. In addition to serving as an effective and easy-to-follow illustration of process analysis, it provides students with important advice about composing. In fact, it can be an effective tool for explaining the composing process at the very beginning of the term, and many teachers use it
to launch their courses.
Marius's style is elegantly simple. As such, the essay can also be used to disabuse students of the notion that they must employ high-powered vocabulary and sophisticated sentence structure to produce clear, interesting, and effective prose.
Items under Content are fairly straightforward and can be discussed quickly. Those under Strategy and Style often take more time. Of these items, i and j are most important, for they can be used to introduce students to techniques they can readily practice in their own process essays.
Engaging the Text
In addition to serving as journal prompts, both of these items can be used to extend classroom discussion. Students who chose item b should be encouraged to draw examples from their own experiences.
Suggestions for Sustained Writing
For the few stout hearts who attempt item a, brainstorming with the instructor and classmates is recommended. It will make it easier for the writer to look at his or her work objectively and to gather sufficient detail to complete the assignment. Item b is more challenging than it looks. Students who choose it should be cautioned to develop their essays in sufficient detail. Indeed, this assignment
demands extensive prewriting to achieve the necessary level of analysis. The last of these items might be the most accessible, for it essentially requires summarizing skills. What students produce can sometimes be duplicated and used as writing guides for other students.
Sue Hubbell: Honey Harvest
Questions for Discussion
Items a-d can be discussed easily in class. Item e demands close analysis, and it can be used as a prompt for short writing. Items g and i make for good jumping off points for explaining the use of specific details. Item j, which addresses the use of humor in this sometimes "painful" analysis, is well worth considering in
class because it forces students to recognize the planning and craft that Hubbell has put into this essay.
Engaging the Text
The second of these prompts is obviously the more interesting of the two. However, students sometimes need to discuss the concept behind the term "rite of initiation" before attempting it.
Suggestions for Sustained Writing
The first assignment gets students to analyze text closely. Hubbell's essay is an excellent model and, as such, can be used to teach students techniques they can use in their own writing. Material that students used to respond to Engaging the Text can also be used in an essay responding to the second Suggestion for Sustained Writing. Make sure to approve the topic chosen by students responding to the third prompt. You might also consult with them about the specific approach
or focus they wish to adopt.
CAUTION: Process analysis assignments such as those listed offer some students an irresistible urge to submit material taken wholly or in part from a how-to manual. Make sure your students submit their topics for advance approval and that they hand in notes and rough drafts especially if they are responding to the third prompt.
Adam Goodheart: How to Paint a Fresco
Questions for Discussion
Some of the questions under Content can be used to whet the students' appetites to complete short or sustained research projects on related questions in history, art history, or even philosophy. The items under Style and Strategy provide excellent jumping off points for introducing students to or reviewing important techniques for writing how-to papers. Item j is especially important, for it requires close analysis of the text, and it can help you show students that even a technically accurate explanation of an arcane process can contain qualities that make it interesting and even humorous to the lay reader.
Engaging the Text
The first of these items will help students practice the kind of organizational skills they will need to apply to how-to assignments. The second will force them to demonstrate their understanding of Goodheart's essay. Both provide an opportunity for students to have a little fun. In fact, I encourage my classes to take a surrealistic approach with these assignments.
Suggestions for Sustained Writing
All three of these assignments are quite accessible. However, students attempting the first should be warned against thinking that they can get away with a short paper, say about 200 words. This assignment requires a significant amount of detail. So do the other two listed here, but few students will be able to complete these without doing some research.
In any event, encourage students to have some fun here. All three assignments were designed to counteract the tendency of novice process-analysis writers to produce the kind of tedious, often disembodied prose that English teachers dread to read and to grade.
Diane Ackerman: Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall
Questions for Discussion
Content
- Ackerman's other purpose becomes evident in her last paragraph. Compare
what she says there with what we read in Cole's "The Arrow of Time"
(Chapter 8).
- If you need to teach your students techniques for summarizing--and who
doesn't--summarizing paragraphs 2-6 makes for good practice. Few students
have difficulty capturing the essence of the process.
- The beginning of paragraph 4 provides the answer--the climates in these
locales are richer and more varied than elsewhere.
- Ackerman uses the religious concept of being without sin as a metaphor for
optimum condition for producing vibrant colors. Interestingly, she may also
be prefiguring her mention of the fall from grace (Adam and Eve) in
paragraph 7.
- See paragraph 5.
- Paragraphs 2 and 3 provide the answer.
- The sentence seems intentionally ambiguous. As a result, it can be used as a
prompt for short writing in which students can use their imaginations.
Strategy and Style
- Obviously, Ackerman's use of figurative language increases reader interest.
Paragraphs 6-8 are worth discussing in this regard.
- As mentioned earlier, one of Ackerman's purposes relates to discussing the
fate of all living things--fragility, susceptibility, and mortality. The story of
the Fall allows her to give her scientific explanation of falling leaves a more
philosophical bent.
Engaging the Text
- Clearly, paragraphs 9 and 10 do not advance Ackerman's scientific analysis.
Students relate to these sections of the essay in different ways, but most of
them need little prompting to see that in them the author is making a
philosophical observation.
- Students can be prepared for this prompt if you discuss Question for
Discussion j inclass. Remind them that when they write their responses to
item b of Engaging the Text, however, they need to make direct reference to
the essay by summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting directly. As such, you
can turn this assignment into practice for writing notes for research papers.
Suggestions for Sustained Writing
In regard to the first prompt, you should remind students that, regardless of the assignment, they should write about a phenomenon they know about or have experienced. Item b might require some class discussion. Students should be encouraged to make marginal notes about technique, tone, and use of language as they re-read the essays by Petrunkevitch and Ackerman and gather information for use in this comparison/contrast assignment. You might also spend some class or office time explaining how their papers might be organized. The third item produces some fascinating essays. Encourage your more creative students to attempt this one.
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