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4. the political campaigns of two opponents running for the same or similar office

5. courtship behavior as practiced by men and by women

6. two clothing styles as emblematic of class or sub-group in your school, town, or workplace

* * *

5. SEEMS TO BE ABOUT X BUT COULD ALSO BE (IS “REALLY”) ABOUT Y

Be suspicious of your first responses.

Use the formula “seems to be about X”

to try on alternative ways of understanding.

This is a useful freewriting prompt that helps students get beyond their first impressions and helps them to see that meanings are inevitably plural and that things mean differently in different contexts.

Like the other heuristics in this toolkit, this last one, “Seems to be about X,” prompts you to move beyond potentially superficial explanations—to go deeper. When we begin to interpret something, we usually find that less obvious meanings are cloaked by more obvious ones, and so we are distracted from seeing them. In most cases, the less obvious and possibly unintended meanings are more telling and more interesting than the obvious ones we have been conditioned to see.

The person doing the interpreting too often stops with the first “answer” that springs to mind as he or she moves from observation to implication, usually landing upon a cliché. If this first response becomes the X, then he or she is prompted by the formula to come up with other, probably less commonplace interpretations as the Y.

Step 1: Start the interpretive process by filling in the blank (the X) in the statement “This subject seems to be about X.” X should be an interpretive leap, not just a summary or description.

Step 2: Next, pose another interpretive possibility by finishing the sentence, “but it could also be (or is really) about Y.”

Step 3: It’s essential to repeat this process a number of times to provoke new, interpretive leaps. In effect, you are brainstorming alternative explanations for the same phenomenon.

Step 4: Choose what you think is the best formulation for Y, and write a paragraph or more explaining your choice.

Discussion This prompt is based on the conviction that understandings are rarely simple and overt. Completing the formula by supplying key terms for X and Y, writers get practice in making the implicit explicit and accepting the existence of multiple plausible meanings for something. “Seems to be about X” is especially useful when considering the rhetoric of a piece: its complex and various ways of targeting and appealing to an audience. It’s also useful for “reading against the grain”—seeking out what something is about that it probably does not know it’s about (see Chapter 5, Writing About Reading).

Note: Don’t be misled by our use of the word really in this formula (“Seems to be about X, is really about Y”) into thinking that there should be some single, hidden, right answer. Rather, the aim of the formula is to prompt you to think recursively, to come up, initially, with a range of landing sites for your interpretive leap, rather than just one.

Seems to Be About X …: An Example

A classic and highly successful television ad campaign for Nike Freestyle shoes contains 60 seconds of famous basketball players dribbling and passing and otherwise handling the ball in dexterous ways to the accompaniment of court noises and hip-hop music. The ad seems to be about X (basketball or shoes) but could also be about Y. Once you’ve made this assertion, a rapid-fire (brainstormed) list might follow in which you keep filling in the blanks (X and Y) with different possibilities. Alternatively, you might find that filling in the blanks (X and Y) leads to a more sustained exploration of a single point. This is your eventual goal, but doing a little brainstorming first would keep you from shutting down the interpretive process too soon.

Here is one version of a rapid-fire list, any item of which might be expanded:

Seems to be about basketball but is “really” about dance

Seems to be about selling