Developing a commentary: Some Instructions and Tools

Color Marking

Color marking is taking a look through a microscope at our passage to better understand the writer’s techniques, or conventions, whether they are narrative or poetic. The process applies to all passages, whether they be prose or poetry. Mark with a different color each type of image/image pattern/motif/other literary devices or techniques that you notice at work in the text. Include a key with a box around it on the top right of your page. Look for things like images, motifs, progressions of images/motifs, POV, syntax, diction, tone/mood, etc.

Important Terms Defined

  • Image- a word (or more than one word) appealing to at least one of our senses; an image deals then, with reader response. Out of our five senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory) the visual is the strongest.
  • Image Pattern- the repetition of three (yes, the magic number) images not necessarily in uninterrupted succession.
  • Motif- A repeated pattern of any type within a work. Note that an image pattern IS a motif, but a motif is not always an image pattern. Note also that various reference sources define the term motif in various ways.

Key Things to Ask Yourself Once You’ve Color Marked:

  • Is one color predominant? Why?
  • Is there some logical progression of imagery/motifs, from one type to another? Why?
  • Is the progression illogical? Why?
  • How do the imagery/motifs reinforce and/or illustrate the content of the passage? (or, if you prefer, what is the relationship of the scene to the imagery/motifs used to describe it?)
  • Imagery reinforces content by giving it emphasis, by making it fresh (an unusual or creative use of imagery), and/or by adding irony (imagery appears to contradict the content or describe it in terms of its opposite qualities)
  • Does the marked material create a specific tone or mood? (Remember, tone= author’s attitude toward the subject of the writing and mood= reader’s reaction/atmosphere created by the author)
  • Based on your color marking, choose three key categories that you have color marked predominantly in the passage and write about the connections or inferences that you can make relating that category with the overall meaning of the text and the author’s choice to include it.

Commentary Grid

This grid can be quickly drawn with the bolded titles and referred to for any type of commentary, written or oral, poetry or prose.

CONTEXT (Who, what, why, when, where, with what consequences?)
Setting; Character(s); Speaker/Narrator
What are the circumstances? What’s going on?
What point of view is the narrator/speaker speaking from? First person? Third person? What’s the effect of that choice?
If poetry, to whom is it addressed? / KEY IDEAS/CENTRAL TENSION or CONFLICT
What are the big ideas here? Find three or four ideas that must be discussed. How does the writer illuminate/express these ideas?
Signs of irony or satire?
MOVEMENT/CONTRAST/SHIFTS
Action: look at the first line and the last line. How has the piece moved between them? Has there been a shift in focus? Mood? Setting? Tone? Perspective?
What shifts /movement do you find in other parts of the poem/passage?
Is the writer contrasting something in the work? / NUTS AND BOLTS
Language, rhythm, pace.
Structure: How does form go along with content? If a poem, is it a form you recognize?
How does sound go along with sense?
Diction, imagery, sound devices, structure, syntax, etc.