Writing
a literary analysis should be no more difficult than writing any
other persuasive-pattern essays.
A literary (or "critical analysis") is organized by the
same pattern of thesis and support
that is used for 90% of college
writing and workplace writing.
Comparing two sample essay outlines for five-paragraph essays written
using my trademark writing skeleton
format will make the similarities obvious.
Sample nonliterary writing skeleton
Here's a writing skeleton for a hypothetical nonliterary
essay:
Thesis:
Computers can hurt you.(The body paragraphs prove the point by
showing how computers can hurt you.)
Body paragraph 1 topic sentence:
Computers can hurt you because computers can cause eyestrain.
Body paragraph 2 topic sentence:
Computers can hurt you because computers can cause repetitive
stress injury to hands.
Body paragraph 3 topic sentence:
Computers can hurt you because computers can cause neck and back
strain.
Sample literary writing skeleton
Here's a writing skeleton for a hypothetical literary analysis:
Thesis:
Brilliant Author uses nature to underscore his theme that life
is a cycle. (The body paragraphs show reasons why the writer believes
that thesis to be true.)
Body paragraph 1 topic sentence:
Brilliant Author uses natural settings to underscore his theme
that life is a cycle.
Body paragraph 2 topic sentence:
Brilliant Author uses nature metaphors to underscore his theme
that life is a cycle.
Body paragraph 3 topic sentence:
Brilliant Author uses nature symbolically to underscore his theme
that life is a cycle.
Paragraph development
Students would develop each body paragraph following the standard
expository paragraph format
when writing a literary analysis from the outline.
The beauty of that expository paragraph format for literary
analysis work is that it limits the amount of source material
a student can include.
Keeping borrowed material to a minimum is extremely important
for college-bound students. Most of the colleges at which I have
taught limit the amount of borrowed material
in a paper to 20-25% of the total word count.
Quotation is typically limited to about 10% of the total paper.
Limiting the amount of borrowing encourages students to think
and reduces the likelihood of plagiarism
or copyright violations.
If you teach students to write using the persuasive essay pattern,
you won't have to teach them a separate method for writing a literary
analysis.
I'm not opposed to doing less work; are you?
Created: 05-Jun-2008 updated: 31-Dec-2009