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06.05 Cultivating Commentary Using Sources When we write, everyone…
06.05 Cultivating Commentary Using Sources
When we write, everyone has access to the same quotations and examples from primary sources. What, then, makes one student’s writing stand out from another student’s ideas? Commentary on those quotations and examples is what gives a piece of writing voice, style, and most importantly, substance. Commentary occurs when we interact or converse with the evidence or details. Commentary may take the form of:
Interpretation
Explanation
Evaluation
Analysis
Insight
Reflection
Reaction
An image of a stoplight with the red, yellow, and green lights is used to illustrate the analogy of slowing down to give evidence and stopping to comment on the evidence’s significance.
Think of a single paragraph as the lights on a traffic signal. You are “going” with your assertion or claim at the green/go light. Then, you “slow down” and offer specific details or evidence to support your assertion at the yellow/slow down light. Finally, you “stop” and comment on your evidence at the red/stop light. Stay at the stop light for a bit. Then, you continue the evidence (yellow/slow down light) and commentary (red/stop light) pattern until you have fully supported your assertion.
This balance of evidence and commentary should continue throughout your supporting paragraph, using a varied sentence structure. Sometimes, your evidence and commentary will be separate sentences; sometimes, they may be part of the same sentence.
Commentary answers essential questions:
What does this example prove or reveal?
How does the evidence support the assertion or claim?
Why is this idea or example important?
So what?
Advanced writers (that’s you!) use their commentary to address larger implications or complexities of the examples or evidence they have discussed.
Let’s Practice
Before working to develop your own commentary, check out these student samples from actual AP responses. Pay attention to how their evidence and commentary work together to support their assertions.
Commentary in a Synthesis
Read the following excerpt of an actual student’s high-scoring essay response on the 2012 exam. The student was instructed to “Carefully read the following seven sources, including the introductory information for each source. Then synthesize information from at least three of the sources and incorporate it into a coherent, well-developed essay that argues a clear position on whether the USPS should be restructured to meet the needs of a changing world, and if so, how.”
Commentary in a synthesis response is slightly different than commentary in a rhetorical analysis. Commentary in a synthesis is focused more on ideas and implications than on technique and effect. With the Synthesis prompt, you will work with written material and will need to make sure you are commenting (not summarizing) in your response. Commentary in a synthesis will:
elaborate on ideas
explain implications
evaluate the validity of ideas
engage in conversation with the sources
Remember, commentary is not summary.
Commentary is developed, deep, and original.
Summary is basic, surface-level, and common.
Your Assignment
It is time to practice cultivating your commentary.
Author James Truslow Adams wrote in 1931 “…that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
Carefully read the following five sources, including the introductory information for each source. Then synthesize material from at least three of the sources and incorporate it into a coherent, well-written paragraph which takes a position on the following assertion: While the American dream has become less accessible over time, the hope that it will one day be attainable for all still endures.
Source A: “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes
Source B: Excerpt from “Civil Rights Address” by John F. Kennedy
Source C: “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr.
Source D: Excerpt from Senator Marco Rubio’s April 2015 Speech at Miami’s Freedom Tower
Source E: Excerpt from then-Senator Barack Obama’s November 2007 Speech on the “American Dream”
Review the rubric to see how your work will be evaluated.
Synthesis Rubric
Thesis 0 points: Thesis is missing, restates the prompt, or does not respond to the prompt. Or intended thesis summarizes but does not make a coherent claim in response to the prompt. 1 point: Response has a defensible thesis that responds to the prompt.
Evidence and Commentary 0 points: Restates thesis (if present), repeats provided information, or references fewer than two of the provided sources. 1 point:
EVIDENCE:
Provides evidence from or references at least two of the provided sources.
AND
COMMENTARY:
Summarizes the evidence but fails to explain how the evidence supports the student’s claim.
2 points:
EVIDENCE:
Provides evidence from or references at least three of the provided sources.
AND
COMMENTARY:
Explains how some evidence relates to the student’s claim, but line of reasoning is not established or is flawed.
3 points:
EVIDENCE:
Provides specific evidence from at least three of the provided sources to support all claims in a line of reasoning.
AND
COMMENTARY:
Explains how some of the evidence supports a line of reasoning.
4 points:
EVIDENCE:
Provides specific evidence from at least three of the provided sources to support all claims in a line of reasoning.
AND
COMMENTARY:
Consistently explains how the evidence supports a line of reasoning.
Sophistication 0 points: Response does not meet the criteria for one point. 1 point: Demonstrates sophistication of thought and/or a complex understanding of the rhetorical situation by doing any of the following throughout the response:
Constructing a nuanced argument by consistently identifying and investigating complexities or tensions across the sources
Articulating the implications or limitations of an argument by placing it within a broader context
Consistently utilizing a style that is vivid and persuasive
Making effective rhetorical choices that consistently strengthen the force and impact of the student’s claim throughout the response
