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Appendix: Student Handouts and Teaching Aids
Handout 9.D. Describing Text Templates
Scholars across academic disciplines interpret from the point of view that texts are
products of a maker’s choices. Whether they are analyzing fashion, poetry, political
speeches, or visual and performing arts, the task of an interpreter/explicator is to make
claims about the intended and unintended effects of the maker’s choices. Please note,
while the templates below can act as a formula of sorts for developing larger or smaller
claims about text, they are not necessarily intended to represent sentences. Each component simply represents a part typically included in an interpretive claim or subclaim,
regardless of how many sentences it takes to express the claim.
Sample Large Claim: (William Carlos Williams’s poem “The Red Wheelbarrow”)
William Carlos Williams describes a farm scene using unusual line breaks and simple,
yet suggestive diction to help the reader explore the role of art and artists in our
perceptions of reality.
Large Claim Template
William Carlos Williams describes
Choice Maker
Verb for Describing Text
a farm scene using unusual line breaks and simple, yet suggestive diction
Choice
(idea, image, technique, etc.)
to help the reader explore the role of art and artists in our perceptions of reality.
Verb for Describing Text Interpreted Meaning
This writer claims to know what the poem is about, but now she has a lot of explaining to do. Note that the adjectives “unusual” and “simple, yet unexpected” interpret as
they describe. The phrase “to help the reader explore” implies the interpreter’s judgments about images, line breaks, diction, and the author’s intention. These implications also require further explanation. Additional subclaims will be needed to help readers understand some of these unspoken associated meanings.
Subclaim Template
Subclaims make up the majority of most interpretive writing. Subclaims involve
elaborations on the effect of particular choices. Multiple subclaims might be needed to
explain how and why a certain aspect of the text means what the interpreter claims it
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Appendix: Student Handouts and Teaching Aids
means. Subclaims help interpreters to spell out, step by step, the valid connections between the text and the interpreted meaning. Just as in the Writing Workshop Template,
subclaims also involve explaining connections to knowledge from outside the text. The
textual evidence is essential to claims. Without the evidence, claims cannot be validated.
A variety of textual references can be found in great paragraphs. Direct quotes, paraphrase, and summary can be woven directly into subclaims or appear before, after, or
within the subclaim statements themselves.
The (detail, diction, image, etc.) (has the effect of __________ ) because __________
can be like __________ because when most people think of __________, they think
__________, because __________.
Sample Subclaim (Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”)
The image of two roads suggests that the decisions we make in life are like forks in a
road, because as we move from one place in our lives to another, there are often several
possible directions to take.
The image of two roads
suggests
Choice Verb for Describing Text
(detail, diction, image, etc.) (has the effect of____)
that the decisions we make in life are like forks in a road
Associated Meanings
(because ____can be like___)
because as we move from one place in our lives to another, there are often several
possible directions to take.
Interpreted Meaning
(because when most people think of ___, they think . . .)
(Explains the connection between particulars of the text and more general association to
personal experience, another text, or some other aspect of the world outside the text.)
360 Degrees of Text: Using Poetry to Teach Close Reading and Powerful Writing by Eileen Murphy Buckley
© 2011 NCTE.
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