Analyzing Themes and Details: Close Reading of Historical Texts
Published February 7, 2017. Updated September 5, 2019.
Overview:
You will learn:
- How to analyze texts for theme, purpose and rhetorical features
- How to describe and evaluate reasoning in texts, including analysis of constitutional principles and legal reasoning
You will do this by examining texts from and about the Civil Rights Movement.
Reading Texts Closely – Economics and Civil Rights
In this lesson, you will examine several documents to understand the economic equality demanded by the Civil Rights Movement.
Some members of the Civil Rights Movement looked to democratic ideals and legal principles to support their fight for economic fairness.
Speeches given during the Civil Rights Era express these ideals and principles through their themes, purposes, and rhetorical features.
Close Reading
Close reading is the process of carefully examining a text.
It involves decoding the message and the medium. In other words, close reading means paying attention not only to what is said, but how and why it is said.
You can closely read historical texts by examining them for theme, purpose, and rhetorical features.
Theme
Theme is the general idea that connects each part of the text. Theme also connects a text to other similar historical documents.
In a literary analysis, theme can also can refer to the overarching concepts that unite many works of literature. Common themes include “the conflict between good and evil” or “the search for identity.” These themes can appear in historical texts, but generally the theme is more informative than conceptual.
Purpose
Purpose is the reason why an author writes a text. The purpose of a text could be to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.
The goal of the text – why the author has created this text—is the purpose.
In general, the purpose of historical texts is to inform the reader by communication information, answering a question, or making an argument.
Historical speeches often work to persuade or entertain the audience.
Rhetorical Features
Rhetorical features are the literary devices used in the text that work to persuade the audience. They are used to help the author or speaker
communicate meaning.
Rhetorical features include:
- alliteration
- repetition
- simile
- metaphor
- allusion
- and more…
For a more complete list of rhetorical devices, click here.
Theme, Purpose, Rhetorical Features: Example
Speeches often attempt to persuade the audience. This was true of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “Where Do We Go From Here?” (August 16, 1967).
Click here to examine this speech. Read the last paragraph of the “Commitment to Nonviolence” section. This paragraph may be one of the most famous parts of the speech.
See if you can determine the theme, purpose, and rhetorical features of this paragraph.
Here are the main elements of King’s “Where Do We Go From Here?”:
- Theme: Questioning the state of the world as it is and encouraging change.
- Purpose: King is trying to persuade the audience that significant changes are needed
- Rhetorical features – the speech includes:
- repetition – “question,” “forty million poor people,“ “begin to ask“)
- questioning – “Where do we go…?”, “Why are there…?”, “Who owns…?”
- emotional appeal – “These are the words that must be said”
Evaluating Reasoning
Close reading also involves evaluating reasoning in a text.
Reasoning is the logic behind the argument being made.
Evaluating reasoning requires you to analyze the text to see if:
- the argument makes sense
- the text achieves its stated or implied purpose
Evaluating Reasoning: Example 1
In “The Ballot or Bullet” (1964), Malcolm X explains his economic philosophy. The purpose of the speech is to persuade the audience to take action to protect their civil rights.
Read Paragraph 12 of Malcolm X’s speech. Determine the economic philosophy behind black nationalism, and evaluate Malcolm X’s reasoning.
Example 1 Explained
Here is a summary Malcolm X’s reasoning behind the “economic philosophy of black nationalism” discussed in his speech “The Ballot or Bullet (1964)” (paragraph 12):
African Americans should spend their money in their own communities. If they “spend their dollar outside” the community, it is not reinvested in the community. As a result, the community becomes poor and rundown, a slum and a ghetto. When this happens, the residents have only themselves to blame. African Americans need to learn how to spend their dollars in the community for the benefit of all who live there.
Evaluation: The logic here makes sense: spend community money in the community. The premise, however, rests on the premise that the money in
the community will absolutely stay in and benefit the community. This could be a flawed argument, albeit a powerful one!
Legal & Constitutional Reasoning
There is a special type of argumentation and use of logic that appears in historical texts: legal and constitutional argumentation.
You have seen the basis of legal and constitutional arguments in claims made on the basis of law (local, state, or federal) or in court cases (state or federal). Text-based analyses may be based on constitutional principles taken directly from the Constitution, or on the decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Taken together these laws and court decisions comprise the “rules” that must be followed.
Legal and Constitutional Reasoning
Legal and constitutional reasoning has the same basis in logic as do many math problems.
The argument made must follow logically from the premises. In this case, those premises are the principles outlined in the laws or court decisions.
For example, in the United States there are laws and court cases that ensure the protection of private property ownership.
Legal & Constitutional Reasoning – Civil Rights Era
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, several significant texts served as the basis for legal and constitutional claims in the fight for civil rights.
These texts included the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, specifically the 14th & 15th Amendments. Together these documents defined the expectations of equality and legal protection of all citizens.
Reasoning in the Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence presents a special case. It is neither a law nor constitution, but it influences thinking about the meaning of “democracy” in the United States.
In particular, the second paragraph of the Declaration articulates Enlightenment ideals that embodied the beliefs of the Founding Fathers during the American evolution. Today, this paragraph shapes the way we think about the nature of our democracy and the political economy.
These ideals include equality for all people, protection of civil rights, and the “pursuit of happiness.”
Constitution – The Preamble
The introductory paragraph of the United States Constitution is known as The Preamble.
It lists the reasons why the Constitution should exist, including an implied economic benefit: to “promote the general welfare and to ensure the Blessings of Liberty…”
These “blessings” could be tangible, like property.
The Constitution – 14th & 15th Amendments
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution contains two major protections:
- The Equal Protections clause which states that all citizens are entitled to the same protections of the law.
- The Due Process clause which states that no person may be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
In other words, there should be no discrimination in the application of the laws of the United States.
The Fifteenth Amendment was written to make sure the Fourteenth Amendment was enforced, especially regarding voting rights.
Evaluating Reasoning – Example 2
On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed the nation in his “We Shall Overcome Speech.” The speech responded to the horrific events of “Bloody Sunday” during the Selma to Montgomery March. Johnson’s speech marked a turning point in the federal response to the demands of the Civil Rights Movement.
For many in the Civil Rights Movement, voting was connected to economic advancement. For example, citizens who could vote had the power to elect candidates who determined government spending.
How did Johnson make the case for supporting the Civil Rights Movement? Click here to read paragraphs 7 (from to 11 of “We Shall Overcome.” As you read, evaluate Johnson’s reasoning and his use of legal and constitutional principles.
Example 2 Explained
Looking at paragraphs 7-11 of We Shall Overcome, President Johnson refers to:
- the Declaration of Independence’s principles of equality
- the Constitutional provisions that protect equal treatment
Johnson expresses these ideas in his statement, “It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others.”
Here you can see that Johnson takes these legal and constitutional principles and applies them to economic concepts to justify federal expansion to protect voting rights.
Johnson’s argument, “every American citizen has the right to vote,” results logically from past laws and decisions.
Evaluating Reasoning – Example 3
In the climax of the We Shall Overcome speech Johnson concludes his argument about why a civil rights bill should be passed. Read paragraphs 26 to 27; as you read analyze Johnson’s use of legal and constitutional reasoning.
Evaluating Reasoning – Example 3 Explained
In paragraphs 26 and 27 of We Shall Overcome, President Johnson makes an economic connection to the Constitution by asking his audience to join in the “full blessings of American life.” This phrase echoes the Preamble to the United States Constitution, “the Blessings of Liberty.”
Johnson then quotes a popular refrain sung at Civil Rights Movement events, “We shall overcome,” and joins his cause with African Americans in the Movement.
This is a rhetorical flourish that expresses the theme and reinforces Johnson’s purpose.
Conclusion
You learned:
- how to analyze texts for theme, purpose and rhetorical features
- how to examine reasoning in texts including the application of constitutional principles and legal reasoning
You did this by examining texts that reflected economic aspects of the Civil Rights Movement.