Readings as a Lens For Malcom Gladwell and Gavin Haynes
Using MLA formatting, write an essay that applies a text as a lens. You will identify central ideas or concepts in the first (“lens”) text, and then apply them to
another (“target”) text in order to look at this text through the perspective of the first.
Use Gavin Haynes’s “How Knitters Got Knotted in a Purity Spiral” as your lens text.
Use Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change” as your target text.
To do this, you must first really understand the lens text:
What is the author’s purpose and main concern?
What are the central ideas or claims?
Next, you must understand the target text: What is the author’s purpose and main concern?
What are the central ideas or claims?
You’ll then consider:
Where do you see general points of agreement or disagreement between the two texts?
Which of the lens text’s main arguments could be applied to the target text?
What does the lens text illuminate/help you understand in the target text?
What are the limits to this application?
Are there places in the target text where the lens text doesn’t apply? How does the target text help you understand how an argument or concept from the lens
text applies (or doesn’t apply) to other circumstances?