When writing a literary analysis
Use the persuasive essay pattern

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?