Free Write: Analyzation of Literature

From the time when I was in third grade, reading comprehension was a key skill. When I entered seventh and eighth grade comprehension was analyzing why events were necessary to happen and how the events came about. In the beginning of high school I had to start analyzing how time periods and styles fit into a story. By the end of ninth grade I was well adapted to answering the basic comprehension and analysis questions, who, what, where, when, why, and how. These are called journalist's questions. These questions help to understand a basic plot of a story or article. However, just as my concept of analysis changed over the course of the years, it is time to add another piece to the puzzle.
Now it is time to look at the relationship between the journalist's questions. This is something that has been skirted around for the past 8 years and is finally becoming clear. There is a tool called Burke's Pentad to help analyze a story's relationships. Burke's pentad helps find relationships and meaning in events. It goes beyond the basic questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how and instead goes for what made this event special or significant. The five subjects of Burke's Pentad are act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. The act asks what happened and what needs to be explained. Scene asks where did the act happen and what were the circumstances? The agent asks who did the event, and what the mental state of the person of action was. Agency wonders how was the event done, what instruments or means did the purpose use. The last of the five Burke's Pentad subjects is Purpose and this is a straight forward why question, why did the event or act take place. These questions need explanative answers which requires more than a few sentences.
When answering the Burke's pentad questions it is good to remember why one is answering the questions and knowing where the questions are headed. If you are writing a paper based on the event, you may want more explanative information. If you are simply providing an overview of information you may want some explanation but not too much because you don't want to overpower a summary. Lastly, if you are reading for comprehension, two or three sentences for each subject of Burke's Pentad should be plenty to get going on understanding the story or article. Overall, Burke's Pentad is a more detailed version of the journalist's questions. It describes relationships that can help the reader to understand a situation better.