Choose one of the mystery texts provided for you.

* Read your mystery text carefully.
* Introduction: Provide a short description of the text/summary of main events. What geography (sphere?) can it be from? Why do you think so? Are there other texts that resemble it? (Even if you don't get the sphere right, it is totally fine. Your explanation of why this text can be from that specific region of the world is more important.)You should have a thesis statement in the introduction. For example: "I argue that this text presents the gender conflicts in modern India" etc. On more information on how to create a thesis statement: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/
* Form/Genre: Explicitly determine which form it belongs to (Novel, short story, epic poem, lyric poem, play? etc.)* Theme: Pick one approach to analyze the text with. Approaches that you can choose from are the ones I emphasized this semester. Analyze the text using one approach. See the file below for themes and literary works.
In order to determine an approach, you may ask questions to yourself such as: does this text give a feminist or anti-feminist message? How?/ Is this text an orientalist text? Why?/ What are the messages related to colonialism in this text? are among the questions you may ask yourself while analyzing the text. Even if you catch more than one theoretical approach in one text, Do NOT pick more than one approach, you might lose track and this may cause you to lose points.* Dissemination: In line with your theoretical approach, pick ONE text from our syllabus and compare it with your mystery text using the same theoretical approach. For instance, do both texts seem to come from the same region? OR do they give a similar message across continents? Do both texts deal with creation? Do both texts define a hero? Do both texts present confrontation with colonialism? Make sure to provide examples from the texts.  See the themes-works table below.
* Close reading: Close read one paragraph from your mystery text. If you know the language that your texts is written in, you may use the original to discuss. IMPORTANT: Your close reading should be related to your overall argument. Do not just close read any paragraph, choose wisely.

Close reading component in the Text Analysis assignment is similar to the ones you did before.The more important thing for Text analysis is that your close reading should seek to support your argument and should be coherent with the rest of your paper. In other words, do not only focus on close reading and do NOT dedicate 500 words on close reading. Pay equal attention to all components of the assignment (such as comparison with other texts etc.).
* Conclusion: Provide a concluding paragraph that pulls the above items into a coherent assessment of the text.
* Coherence: Important: Be Coherent overall, check grammar, spelling and proofread.

Mystery Text:

Mystery Text 1 
Joyce was afraid of thunder but lions roared at his funeral from the Zurich zoo. Was it Trieste or Zurich? No matter. These are legends, as much as the death of Joyce is a legend, or the strong rumour that Conrad is dead, and that Victory is ironic. On the edge of the night-horizon from this beach house on the cliffs there are now, till dawn, two glares from the miles-out- at-sea derricks; they are like the glow of the cigar and the glow of the volcano at Victory's end.One could abandon writing for the slow-burning signals of the great, to be, instead, their ideal reader, ruminative, voracious, making the love of masterpieces superior to attempting to repeat or outdo them, and be the greatest reader in the world. At least it requires awe, which has been lost to our time; so many people have seen everything, so many people can predict, so many refuse to enter the silence of victory, the indolence that burns at the core, so many are no more than erect ash, like the cigar, so many take thunder for granted. How common is the lightning, how lost the leviathans we no longer look for! There were giants in those days. In those days they made good cigars. I must read more carefully.

Text to compare with:

I am a griot. It is I, Djeli Mamoudou Kouyatd, son of Bintou
Kouyatd and Djeli Kedian Kouyatd, master in the art of eloquence.
Since time immemorial the Kouyatds have been in the
service of the Keita princes of Mali; we are vessels of speech, we
are the repositories which harbour secrets many centuries old. The
art of eloquence has no secrets for us; without us the names of
kings would vanish into oblivion, we are the memory of mankind;
by the spoken word we bring to life the deeds and exploits of kings
for younger generations. (Sundiata 1)