25 Writing Literary Analyses

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Writing Literary Analyses

Start-Up Activity

Lead a discussion about the latest big movie that many of your students have seen:

  • What did you like most about it? What did you like least?

  • Who were the main characters? What problem did they face?

  • Where and when did the action take place? How did that affect the story?

  • What did the characters learn about life? What did you learn?

Let students know that just as they have been evaluating a movie and analyzing the characters, plot, setting, and theme, they can do the same with a work of literature. In this chapter, they will learn how to perform a literary analysis.

Think About It

“Literature is news that stays news.”

—Ezra Pound

TEKS Covered in This Chapter

Page 224 from Write on Course 20-20

Understanding Literary Analyses

Use the PAST strategy to help students understand the writing situation involved with a literary analysis. The Purpose often includes informing, persuading, and perhaps even entertaining the reader with an analysis of the literature. The Audience is other readers, and the Subject is the piece of literature itself. The Type could run the gamut from a blog post to a movie review to a research paper.

Use the "Link to the Traits" to preview the ideas, organization, and voice of an effective literary analysis.

 

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Page 225 from Write on Course 20-20

Writing Topics

Use this page to help your students understand the many possible ways to focus a literary analysis. Starting with one of the major elements of literature can help students create more than just a plot summary.

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Page 226 from Write on Course 20-20

Literary Analysis

Ask for student volunteers to read each paragraph of the model literary analysis and any side notes with it. Have other students find textual examples of the things mentioned in the side notes.

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Page 227 from Write on Course 20-20

Literary Analysis (Continued)

After you finish reading and discussing "A Wall of Emotions," direct students to the "Patterns of Organization" at the bottom of the page. The first pattern follows the chronological order of the literature itself and is useful for plot summaries as well as analyses of character or theme. The second pattern works well for analyses of theme or setting.

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Page 228 from Write on Course 20-20

Writing Guidelines: Literary Analyses

If you have a piece of literature that you want your students to write about, assign it and skip the first step. If students must self-select a piece of literature, provide the ideas chart template and have students fill it in with details about recent stories or novels they have read.

Afterward have students return to page 225 to find ways to focus their analyses.

If you want students to be aware of the grading criteria for their analyses, provide them the response rubric.

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Page 229 from Write on Course 20-20

Prewriting—Focusing on Theme

If your whole class will be writing about the themes of their stories, teach the top part of the page to the whole group. If you are allowing students to select what part of the literature they will focus on, pull aside those who want to focus on theme and teach this material as a minilesson.

Use the material at the bottom of the page to teach everyone how to create a strong thesis statement. (Those focusing on a different element of the literature should substitute that element for "theme.")

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Page 230 from Write on Course 20-20

Gathering Details

To help students gather details for their literary analyses, have them generate a cluster, or provide a character chart template to fill in.

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Page 231 from Write on Course 20-20

Prewriting—Using Direct Quotations

Teach the top part of this page to help students understand the importance of citing evidence from the text. Also, point out the convention for providing the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

If your students are following the pattern of the sample literary analysis, they can use their clusters or character charts from page 230 as a starting point for outlining their analyses. The example on the bottom of page 231 gives one possible organizational plan.

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Page 232 from Write on Course 20-20

Writing—Developing the Beginning and Middle

Once students have gathered plenty of evidence from their stories, they are ready to start writing their first drafts.

Lead students through the beginning and middle strategies and examples on this page. For any students who are stuck, suggest the tips in the "Good Thinking" feature at the bottom of the page.

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Page 233 from Write on Course 20-20

Writing, Revising, and Editing

Use the material at the top of the page to help students understand different strategies they can use to bring their essays to a strong close.

After students have completed their first drafts, provide the revising and editing checklist to help them improve their work.

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