Reflection on “The Hopi Snake Dance” Commentary

Ivan Lee Y9Peace

I found the article “The Hopi Snake Dance” to be very informative and interesting. However,
my commentary was not as good as expected. I’ve scored a total of level 5 for this analysis
and I am very disappointed with the result. Although many of the comments given by Dr.
Sampson I agree with, there are also a few points that I’d like to argue against.

One positive thing that I believe I did well is the fact that I’ve basically included everything
you can talk about in an analysis. I’ve included the tone, the target audience, the literary
devices, the purpose and the background information on the article. However, I’ve only got a
level 6 for my Criterion A, which I find to be particularly disappointing as I thought I did
everything correctly and I do not know how to further improve my grades.

One negative point from my commentary is that I do not use quotes effectively and I
sometimes confuse the readers. After reading back my analysis several times, I totally agree
with the comments given by Dr. Sampson because I can see that my points do not include an
explanation/short analysis after I used a quote. I have successfully written how it affects the
readers but I did not write what the quote is talking about or what it's trying to say. Thus, it
confuses the readers and making my points not valid.

Another negative point in my commentary is that I’ve included too much information at the
introduction. Since we are writing these commentaries to prepare for our assessment, writing
too much information is not beneficial because we are only allowed to use the given article
and the internet is not accessible. Even though this is just a minor problem, I still think that I
should not do any research so that I can really test my analysis skills.

In summary, I do not think my commentary went as well as expected. Even though there are
some positives, the negatives overtake it. If I were to do this again, I must improve my
analysis skills. I could possibly achieve this by reading more articles/books or watch the news
either on the television or on the internet. I must also remember to always use the PETER
paragraph when analyzing. I could achieve this by writing or reading more often.