Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [147]
[2] Here, Alex and Lara settle down into conversation. The young couple sits, hand in hand, and gazes together into the night sky; yet, as the camera pans away, we see that the apartment where the two have retreated is missing its façade. Inside, three walls are still decorated, complete with furniture, wallpaper, and even working lamps; yet, the two sit on the ledge of the fourth wall, which has crumbled away completely.
[3] [So what?:] On the surface, I think the movie invites us to read this as a visual representation of the new lives Alex, Lara, and the other characters face now that the wall has fallen. As a Westerner, at first I read this scene as a representation of the new relationship between Lara and Alex. In other words, I imagined the movie’s placement of the couple on the ledge of a domestic space as a representation of where their lives were going together—toward some shared domestic life, toward living together, toward becoming a family. I also thought this was a clever representation of the collapse of communism— this wall has also fallen down.
[4] [Complicating evidence:] I don’t think, however, that the movie lets us entertain this one romanticized reading of the scene for long—the image is too frightening. As the camera pans away, we see that this isn’t a new Westernized apartment; this is an East German flat decorated in much the same way as Alex’s home was only months before. The image is alarming; the wall here has been ripped down, [so what?:] and we are forced to ask, did the fall of communism violently blow apart domestic and daily living of East German people?
[5] The movie allows us this dichotomy and, I think, fights to sustain it. On one hand, Alex and Lara would not be on this date if the wall hadn’t come down, and yet the scene is more than just another representation of East Germany torn between Communism and the new Westernization. [Working thesis:] The movie tries hard to remind us that the rapid Westernization of East Germany devastated while it liberated in other ways. This scene uses space to represent Alex and Lara’s (and East Germany’s) dilemma: Alex and Lara gaze out at the night sky but only because the wall has been blown apart. The exposed apartment is uninhabitable and yet the lights still work, the pictures are still hung, and a young couple leans against one another inside.
This draft is a good example of a writer using evidence to complicate as well as support her claims. Her thinking evolves through successive complications; that is, she complicates a previous claim that was a complication. When the writer arrives at tentative answers, she tests them rather than just adding more evidence to prove she is right.
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Try This 10.4: Marking Claims, Evidence, and Complications in a Draft
As a check on the range of concepts that this and the previous chapter have introduced, mark the student draft as follows:
Mark claims—assertions made about the evidence—with the letter C. Claims are ideas that the evidence seems to support. An example of a claim is in paragraph 4: “I don’t think, however, that the movie lets us entertain this one romanticized reading of the scene for long.”
Underline evidence. The evidence is the pool of primary material (data)— details from the film, rather than the writer’s ideas about it. An example of evidence is in paragraph 2: “The young couple sits, hand in hand, and gazes together into the night sky; yet, as the camera pans away, we see that the apartment where the two have retreated is missing its façade.” This piece of evidence is the 1 of the 10 on 1. In effect, the whole draft goes after the range of possible implications that may be inferred from the image of the young