More than Form: Teaching Analytic Essays about
Literature to High School Writers
Andrew Morabito
“Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the
worst… They are for nothing but to inspire.” - Ralph Waldo
Emerson
As current and future English teachers, we all have multifarious
reasons for making the same career choice. Maybe a teenage
fondness for corduroy and tweed made you feel drawn toward your
English teacher as an exemplar of prestigious intellectual
knowledge which you aspired to, maybe most of your high school
English teachers were grossly inept and decaying before your eyes
while they were supposed to be teaching and you feel compelled to
right a wrong by being a competent teacher, maybe lots of things.
But, most certainly, the unifying force which has brought us all to
this field of work is an unwavering, spirited passion for literature
which we hope to imbue in the burgeoning, easily distracted
youths which inhabit the high school English classrooms. So then,
with a field of work which is inherently altruist and certainly
doesn’t amount to easy money, why haven’t American English
teachers actualized an educated citizenship which is not only
highly literate, but also has an appreciation for literature and
recalls fondly their time spent in English class? Is literature being
systematically abused in the American high school curriculum,
becoming one of the worst of things and ringing true Emerson’s
dictum? And is the analytic essay the culprit?
As many of us who are young enough to have still been in high
school when the most recent form of the New York State English
Regents Exam was first administered or in its nascent years know,
and those who have proctored and graded the notorious exam
themselves know, the exam is rigid, exacting, and preparation for it
is exhaustive and tends to saturate the curriculum during the three
years leading up to it. Students are no longer learning vocabulary,
reading literature and subsequently writing about it because it has
the possibility of being great and interesting to them, but because
they need to be able to meet expectations when they meet their
destiny: the NYS English Regents exam.
It’s no wonder that so many of us who have been grilled and
drilled in preparation for the Regents have trouble recalling fond
memories of writing in English class. The reading was often fun,
but once the writing part was due, the fun was drained out of it.
The formal analytic essay about literature never seemed like a
place for your real opinions; it’s where you parrot back those
unquestionable nugget-like ideas that your teacher gave you in a
lecture or where you play the find-the-literary-device game and
wrote “This is an example of irony.” The formal analytic essay
tends to be reductionist, and as Randy Bomer states when speaking
of students subjected to this genre of writing, “Though their first
impressions may be subjective, ultimately they must squelch their
response in favor of genres of writing that aspire to more
objectivity” (104). English students are led to believe that their
opinions have no place in formal written analysis, and with the
oppressive Regents exam looming over their heads for the first
three of their four high school years, it’s not surprising that morale
is often low in the English class concerning formal writing about
literature.
With the inevitability of the Regents, the question must become,
“How do we prepare our students well enough to write formal
literary analysis without draining all the fun out of it and
squelching their personal identity?” Well, as I’ve learned in my
research, by employing a curriculum which contains various styles
of writing assignments, reading assignments which are made
approachable for the students, and not immediately harping on the
eventuality of writing for a major grade (particularly the finality of
the state exam as judgment day), high morale in the English
classroom can be established and maintained. Students can
develop as writers through un-institutionalized and varying styles
of writing and studying literature while also becoming suitably
prepared to succeed in the area of formal written analysis while
maintaining their enthusiasm for the text.
Letting Literature Inspire and Maintaining Enthusiasm
The ultimate goal of teaching the formal essay about literature is to
teach students how to convince a reader that their interpretation of
a text is valid, and to do so in their own words. This is not an easy
task, though. Novice writers need time to become accustomed to
analyzing literature verbally and informally before they will be
able to successfully translate their thoughts into the unnatural, rigid
structure of formal written analysis. Before their arrival at
secondary school, most students have had no experience with
formal written analysis of literature. When speaking of the great
demands made on these beginning analytic writers, Linda Flowers
said, “There is only so much room in the writer’s conscious
attention for all that needs to be accomplished due to the complex
nature of writing” (29). It’s important to remember that our
students are humans, not robots, and not only are they going to
take to new forms of expression at different rates, but their
thoughts are inherently messy and come out scattered. To write
formally, students need to be taught over time that formal analytic
writing should not squelch their initial response, as Bomer says, in
favor of sequential orderliness and structure, but that it should
allow them to infuse voice into their writing.
Preparing students to write formal analysis of literature can be a
delicate process though, and before we discuss it, we need to
understand how students respond to literature. George Hillocks
distinguishes responses to literature in three dimensions: the
cognitive, the affective, and the aesthetic, as Margot Soven
explains it.
“The cognitive dimension includes understanding the explicit
and implicit meanings in the text, drawn from the author’s use
of ‘words, images, characters, and events’ in the work. What
Hillocks calls the ‘cognitive response’ should sound familiar to
you because it describes what we think of as the traditional
approach to interpreting literature, which has as its purpose the
discovery of author’s intentions. The affective dimension
describes the emotional impact of the work on the reader, how
the reader is affected by the work. The aesthetic dimension
describes the pleasure we feel in the art and artifice of the work;
it involves the total artistic impact of the work, the unique blend
of words, images, and characters, and events.” (158)
The usefulness of viewing students’ responses to literature in three
distinct classifications is to allow us to see that in order for
students to arrive at a somewhat encompassing awareness of the
text, we need to allow enough time for them to develop all three
types of responses before the cognitive dimension, the traditional
written analysis, can be properly utilized by them in the
classroom. “According to Hillocks, it is the inseparability of these
three dimensions that makes literature a distinct way of knowing”
(Soven 158). Hillocks’ three dimensions are inseparable and
highly dependant upon one another. For example, if a student is
misinterpreting a major aspect of the text on the cognitive level,
then his or her affective and emotional responses may be irrelevant
or inappropriate. And once students begin to develop their
affective responses, how they feel about a text, they are drawing on
their cognitive response. The aesthetic response comes third
because it draws on both the cognitive and affective responses.
When explaining Hillocks’ theory, Soven explains that, “We seem
to appreciate what a writer has done with language as we respond
with understanding and feeling” (171). Students can only analyze
the effectiveness of author’s techniques after they have interpreted
a work and understood the effect it has had on them.
The best way to incorporate student response in all three
dimensions is to assign both formal and informal writing. But,
informal writing should be introduced in the curriculum before any
rigorous formal essays are. As Soven says, “Many instructors
begin the study of a literary work by assigning informal writing,
such as journal entries. Informal writing gives students the
opportunity to respond to a text without worrying about the
elements of the formal paper” (158). And as previously stated,
introducing the elements of formal written analysis too early can
be daunting to novice writers.
A precursor to Hillocks’ view of response to literature as being
three dimensional is Louise Rosenblatt’s “Reader Response
Theory.” Rosenblatt’s theory says that “the basis for intelligent
productive reading is in the unique, individual, perhaps
idiosyncratic connection between readers and the text… Meaning
is the product of active minds and the words on the page—it does
not reside in the ink, to be ferreted out, unearthed, uncovered”
(168). Rosenblatt’s theory values individual reader responses as
the beginning of interpretation.
Rosenblatt outlined the following principles for teaching literature:
1. Students must be free to deal with their own
reactions.
2. There must be an opportunity for “an initial
crystallization of a personal sense of the work.”
3. The teacher should attempt to find points of
contact among opinions of students.
4. The teacher’s influence should be an elaboration
of the vital influence inherent in the literature itself.
(167)
These principles show us that students will develop their views of
a text through the sharing of their various interpretations in
classroom discussion. The teacher should not be solely a lecturer
and provider of valid interpretation. Traditionally, teachers are
often viewed as omniscient and students may be reluctant to ask
questions and contribute their own interpretations for fear that they
will be wrong. On the other hand, a Reader Response approach
aims to arrive at the “widely accepted interpretations” by allowing
students to “deal with their own reactions” and develop
understanding with not only the help of the teacher, but also their
classmates, with the teacher serving as a guide.
Employing a Reader Response approach to teaching does not by
any means imply a lawless classroom though, where students
completely dictate the path the curriculum takes. Students still
need to be given daily tasks, no matter how brief they may be. As
Soven explains, “one method for applying Rosenblatt’s principles
to the classroom is to construct a set of questions such as those
developed by Robert Probst,” which I’ve listed in Appendix I
(163). Probst recommends developing about ten prompts per unit
stapled into a small book, allowing students to explore things such
as their first reactions, feelings, associations, judgments, evolution
of their reading, etc. According to Probst, “The questions suggest
the possibility of moving from response to analysis without
denying the validity of initial responses, of unique personal
interactions and associations” (Soven 163). We can see that the
formal analysis will grow out of these initial seeds of important
questions and thoughts which students develop individually and
collectively, maintaining interest as they go because their
responses are not the teacher’s, but their own.
Maintaining students’ initial interest in literature is a difficult task,
and to achieve this, Bomer says that “student writers need to learn
to be affected by literature” (107). Nurturing students’ personal
responses is imperative to the entire process of teaching formal
written analysis because this way, when it becomes time for the
formal writing they will have developed a lively, vested interested
which they can explore further in written analysis. Bomer
accomplishes this “student affectation” by literature in a similar
way to Probst’s questions. Bomer asks questions like, “How did
you feel about that? And what do you think it is, from your own
life, that causes you to feel that way when you read this?” (108).
When it comes to formal written analysis, Bomer suggests that it
should arise out of students natural inclinations to further explore
the subjective ways that a text “touches them.” English teachers
should not be objectifying pieces of literature for the sake of
formal written analysis (108). Bomer’s stance is a noble one, but
those of us teaching in New York State and other states with
mandated English exams need to prepare our students to tackle
analytic writing assignments in which creativity is not particularly
accounted for and in which their topic is given to them. That is not
to say that we have to limit the writing curriculum to just formal
analytic writing though. Nurturing students’ personal responses
early in the process as Probst, Rosenblatt, and Bomer suggest, can
help to fully engage our students in the process of reading
literature and writing about it analytically. By teaching formal
written analysis as a process that feeds off students’ personal
responses and interaction with a text, we can allow them to become
analytic thinkers about literature before formal writing demands
are made upon them. Teaching formal written analysis in this
manner can also encourage greater student interest in their formal
writing when the time comes and won’t overload them with the
transition of learning analysis and the restrictions of formal writing
simultaneously.
Transitioning from Interpreting Literature to Writing about
Literature
For most of our students, formal written analysis is an unnatural
act. It can be greatly discouraging to them if we approach it the
wrong way. In Thinking through Genre, Heather Lattimer
describes the traditional literary essay as “formulaic, cold, and
clinical” (244). And I think that most of us would be willing agree
with that assertion. Lattimer believes that “students deserve more.
They need to know that a response to literature is more than just a
requirement set out in the state standards. They need to integrate
response into the fabric of their readerly lives, thinking of it not as
an end-of-the-book, teacher imposed assignment but as a necessary
part of understanding and creating text” (244). Following
Lattimer’s advice, even if the format for testing students’ abilities
in written analysis doesn’t change (and it’s highly unlikely that it
will), we can change the perception of the genre and improve the
final product of the traditional essay by changing students’
perception of what it is to study and write about literature. It’s
clearly not as simple as it sounds, but it’s not impossible either.
In order to nurture interactions in which students actively question
the text, infer its meanings, relate to its characters on a personal
level, and synthesize their prior understandings with the new ideas
which the text presents, Lattimer suggests that “we think of
responses to literature as being in three categories: reflective,
creative, and analytical” (245). If we incorporate all three of these
responses into the writing curriculum we will be developing a
variety of student writing skills as they study literature which will
build off of each other.
Reflective response, as Lattimer suggests, can include “minilessons, peer discussions, margin notes, reading response journal
prompts, and end of class sharing” (245). These informal activities
all encourage reflection and initiate critical thinking about
literature, serving to get the gears turning in students’ minds,
encouraging meaningful interaction with literature. As Lattimer
says, “Being able to consistently and thoughtfully reflect on text is
one of the most important measures of a literate individual” (245).
After all, how can we expect our students to produce quality,
formal written analysis without providing maximum opportunity
for them to reflect and develop the interest which will spawn the
analytic thought which is not merely a parroting-back of the
teacher’s thoughts presented in lecture? Ideally, optimal
opportunity for reflective response will imbue students with a
vested interest in the text, one which will carry over to and enliven
their formal written analysis.
Creative response, though not assessed on tests such as the Regents
exam, is essential to student writers becoming more aware of
literature and thinking of literature in the way that professional
writers would. As Lattimer says, “Professional writers not only
reflect on text. They use texts to inspire their own writing. A line
of a poem, the actions of a character in a story, a quotation in a
journal article, an argument in an editorial may be the inspiration
that will lead to a great piece of original text” (245). A writing
curriculum which only requires formal written analysis tends to
objectify literature and separate the student from creative writing,
making literature seem untouchable. But, a writing curriculum
which also incorporates creative response gives the student the eye
of the writer, encouraging them to key in what makes things work
as they read. Bomer likens this process to his amateur attempts at
carpentry:
“I am a very bad carpenter, but occasionally, when the house
needs a new set of bookshelves, say, I build something. When I
am thus engaged, I have eyes for carpentry; I notice every joint
of every cabinet I see, constantly telling myself, Oh, sure, I
could do that, or Maybe if I had the right tools, or just, Wow.
That’s what it’s like for authors to read. Responses analogous
to mine about carpentry go into their notebook, and from the
accumulation of such noticings, art grows.” (106)
When Bomer mentions “their notebook,” he is referring to the
inclusion of a writer’s notebook in the curriculum. In Time for
Meaning Bomer shows us that the purpose of the writer’s notebook
is to encourage students to record what they believe to be their
poignant “noticings” as they read. If students use the writer’s
notebook to record quotations, craft their own original ideas for
pieces, and document their thoughts and reflections about their
reading, then when the time comes for them to write their own
fictional piece or formal analysis about literature, they’ll simply be
able to “plumb their notebooks for ideas and inspirations”
(Lattimer 246). Lattimer stresses that, “Although there are many
standards to address and many tests to prepare for, the year should
not become so packed with units of study and curriculum that we
remove the opportunity for students to think and respond creatively
to literature” (246). And though the state exams won’t be
demanding our students to prove their creative writing abilities, the
incorporation of creative writing assignments at points throughout
the year will likely boost morale and students’ interest in
literature.
I know from a reading and writing survey I recently conducted at
Whitney Point High School in two ninth grade classes, that the
students value opportunities to express themselves creatively.
When asked what their favorite in-class writing assignment was,
42% of the students chose a fable writing assignment that they had
recently completed and most students cited that the reason they
chose the fable assignment was the free expression which it
allowed. A creative writing assignment like a fable is not only
useful in sparking student interest in literature, it also helps
students “internalize the structures of the essay, which is an
abstract kind of writing that grows naturally by starting writing
instruction in forms that closely resemble literature of the oral
tradition” (Soven 175). Marie Ponsot and Rosemary Dean believe
that assigning diversionary writing like fables (see Appendix II for
an example assignment) which utilize the imagination to be a more
successful approach than the traditional ways which English
teachers have taught how to write essays by simply laying out the
features of the formal essay and its stages of writing. They define
the fable as “a two part structure of which each part is a literary
structure. The first part is concrete, a dramatic dialogue; its other
function is to demonstrate the second part. The second part is
abstract, an aphorism; its other function is to sharpen the focus of
the dialogue, making an analogy, a memorable statement about it”
(14). The result of the fable writing assignment is a desirable one;
it gives students experience adhering to a specific, though simple,
form and will prepare them for the format of the traditional literary
analysis essay.
Teaching the Formal Literary Essay
“For English teachers who have been well trained in the practice
of writing the five-paragraph theme essay it can be very difficult
to let students choose their own texts, find their own thesis,
develop their own arguments, and explain their own evidence.
There is a constant temptation to ‘just let me tell you what to
write and how to write it” (Lattimer 249).
Despite our tendency to sometimes tighten the vice on the class
when it comes time for formal written analysis, in order for
students to grow as writers, we must allow them to first struggle
through the traditional essay. To attain our goal of moving away
from the student sentiment of the formal essay as an “end-of-thebook, teacher imposed assignment” (Lattimer 244), students need
to have more at stake in the formal writing process. If they’ve
previously been given class time to have a voice, an opinion, and
opportunities to reflect personally, those liberties should carry over
to, and provide the basis for, formal essay writing. We should
encourage students to scour their notebook reflections for recurring
interests they have in the text, and on a more general level, to
choose which text they will write about for a grade. The idea is
that, given these liberties, students’ initial appreciation and
questioning of literature will carry over to their written analysis.
As Lattimer suggests, we should offer students an authentic
purpose for written literary analysis, “beyond the typical ‘you need
to be able to do this for state tests…middle school…high
school…college’ response that we have all used but that simply
indicates we don’t really have a good reason for making them
write something that they don’t want to write and we don’t really
want to read” (Lattimer 247). If we encourage students to infuse
their formal analysis with prior personal inquiry and interest, not
only will they be more likely to retain interest during their writing,
but their writing will be more interesting for us, as teachers, to
read.
Once we have given students adequate time to grow as readers of
literature and to become engaged in the processes of reflective,
creative, and analytical thought, then we should introduce the
criteria for formal written analysis. In order to not overwhelm
students with the entire format of typical literary analysis too soon
in the process, we should introduce the general rules of argument
first in order to provide the base for essay creation. As Soven
outlines, “Toulmin identifies three basic parts of any effective
argument: the claim, the data, and the warrant. The claim is the
conclusion or the thesis statement, the data include the evidence
for the claim, and the warrant is the explanation of why the data
justify the claim, or, in other words, how you can make the
connection between the data and the claim” (Soven 161). When
writing formal literary analysis, student writers often have trouble
finding specific and relevant evidence and relating it back to their
thesis, or they simply neglect to do so. By introducing the simple
sequence of claim, data, and warrant, and allowing students to
employ these rules of developing argument before we introduce all
the necessary criteria of formal essays, we can habituate students
to the process of developing arguments and convincing another
person that their arguments or interpretations are valid before they
necessarily learn how to frame their arguments properly in a
formal essay.
Taking another cue from Soven, a good way to prepare your
students for developing arguments is to evolve your daily informal
writing tasks into Evidence Abstracts. Here is an example
evidence abstract:
Students have been given the following assignment:
At several points in The Great Gatsby, Gatsby shows his love
for Daisy. Do you believe that Daisy is in love with Gatsby?
Write five specific examples or details from the novel that
support your viewpoint.
A student might write the following Evidence Abstract to
respond to this question:
Evidence Abstract: Student A
Thesis: Gatsby’s love for Daisy is demonstrated through his
actions and his words.
1) Gatsby buys a house near Daisy’s house in order to be near her.
2) When he sees the green light at the end of the dock, Nick thinks
about Gatsby’s attraction for Daisy.
3) Gatsby invites many people to his parties in the hope that Daisy
will come.
4) Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a meeting with Daisy.
5) Gatsby tries to protect Daisy after she has run down Myrtle with
Gatsby’s car.
After students have written their drafts, based on their Evidence
Abstracts, they can review each other’s drafts to evaluate the
quality of evidence in the draft. (Soven 161-2)
The Evidence Abstract poses a question which requires students to
choose a side of the argument, which will become their thesis
statement. They then have to defend the thesis with specific
evidence. This sort of prewriting assignment can be helpful for
showing students how to develop their arguments, and it can
evolve into a formal essay, which can be particularly helpful for
students who have trouble finding an essay topic on their own.
We must also be sure to present model analytic essays as
“touchstone texts” to our student writers so that they have a sense
of what we expect of them from the essay assignment. Using
model analytic essays may seem impractical due to the fact that
finding good samples can be difficult, but countless writer’s
handbooks and English Regents prep books have sample literary
analysis essays (see Appendix VII for an example) and even
sample introductory and concluding paragraphs (see Appendices
III, IV, and V). Using sample essays and paragraphs from books
may not provide you with exemplary “touchstone texts,” but using
these samples can provide opportunities for you and your students
to read and evaluate the criteria and overall effectiveness of
anonymous writing. Using models from books can seem
inauthentic, due to the fact that they are written by a random or
anonymous person and that we don’t often read pieces of this sort,
but a useful way to make the presentation of sample essays or
“touchstone texts” seem more real to your students would be to
save student essays from previous school years or, even better, to
write an analytic essay of your own for students to dissect.
Supplying your own model essay constitutes some extra time and
effort on your part, but it is the only truly authentic way of giving
your students a model essay which displays all the particulars you
want them to see before they begin drafting their own essays..
Once your students are familiar with writing argument defense,
have been presented model essays, and have located a thesis which
they would like to prove in a longer, formal essay, then you can
introduce the format for writing an analytic essay. As a preoutlining activity, the literary analysis web (see Appendix VI),
developed by Mary Ledbetter, can be used to expand upon your
students’ experience defending arguments as they did with the
evidence abstracts. The literary analysis web is a more visual
instructional tool which requires students to not only practice
supporting a thesis with evidence, but also to develop main points
and divide subtopics into their main paragraphs. The web can be
particularly useful as a pre-outlining activity when introducing the
format of the literary analysis essay to younger writers who may be
writing their first analytic essay. The next thing to do is to
distribute a sample essay criteria outline, with the types of outlined
info you expect from them. I have included a particularly good
example which I have used with the permission of Robert Hesch,
who is an English teacher at Whitney Point High School and
hosted me during my fieldwork.
Literary Essay Outline
I. Introduction
Interest Catcher – 1-3 sentences hooking the reader’s attention (should NOT be
the thesis statement) (Ex. Question, General Statement, Quote, Interesting
Fact, Anecdote)
Thesis Statement – The statement that tells exactly what you are going to prove
in your paper or what you are going to write about.
II. Body
A. Main Point 1 – Your first reason or generalized example that
supports your thesis. (This should NOT have a reference to the
text; it should be a general statement)
1. Example from the text – this should either be a
summary from a specific part of the text or a quote
from the text. You will probably need more than one
example for each paragraph.
2. Literary Device – This should support your example.
B. Main Point 2
1. Example from the text
2. Literary Device
C. Main Point 3
1. Example from the text
2. Literary Device
III. Conclusion – This is the last thing you say as a conclusion to what you’ve said
in your paper. Now that your paper is done, what do you have to say? A weak
conclusion would be a restatement of thesis or main points. A strong conclusion
would be an insightful statement based on what you’ve said in your essay but
something different than what you’ve said in your essay.
As Mr. Hesch did, presenting the necessary criteria and sequencing
of the formal essay as a visual for your students to see is
imperative; simply telling them or making them take note of the
format is not enough for some students to grasp the organization
and sequencing of ideas which a formal written analysis requires,
and which they will need to be familiar with for the state exam.
By the time you introduce the format and requirements of the
formal analytic essay about literature, most students should have a
thesis statement. Even so, it is a good idea to present some further
information to them about writing thesis statements. Distribute
handouts on developing good thesis statements. Some useful free
resources can be found on online writing workshops such as
Purdue University’s, which can be found at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/general/gl_lit.html
and Essayinfo.com’s, which can be located at
http://essayinfo.com/basics/thesis.php. In many cases, having
students entirely rethink, rewrite, or just revise their thesis
statement with the help of a thesis guideline can help them tailor
their thesis to be more specific, debatable, and better warrant
literary analysis. It is also important to spend ample time not just
stressing the organization and functions of the various parts of the
formal essay, such as the ever-important thesis statement, but also
detailing what those parts are not. Three common areas that need
reiteration are the fact that the main points leading off each of the
body paragraphs are not to include direct quotes or references to
the text, and that the conclusion is not simply a restatement or
summary of the essay; a good conclusion would be a new, final
insight on the topic.
Once students are ready to write their formal literary analysis
essay, an additional handout on the stylistic conventions of literary
essays should be distributed and explained. A list like the
following one compiled by Soven will serve the purpose.
Literature Essay Conventions

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
Use the present tense when discussing works of
literature and events within those works.
Use the past tense only when discussing events that
have happened in the past, whether in the author’s life
or in the story itself.
Work quotations into your paper smoothly,
conforming to correct sentence structure and
grammatical form. Quotations should always have
lead-ins.
Incorrect: “I have been acquainted with the night”
(543). This is an example of Robert Frost’s
metaphorical language in his poem, “Acquainted with
the Night.”
Correct: Robert Frost uses metaphorical language in
his poem “Acquainted with the Night,” in which he
describes his loneliness as his acquaintance with the
night (543).
Quotations should not be overly long; instead they
should become a part of the text, acting as support for
your points.
Use parenthetical documentation for all quotes and
include a Works Cited page, according to MLA
(Modern Language Association) documentation style.
Identify works of literature correctly. Titles of novels
and plays should be underlined or italicized (e.g., a
novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a
play, The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller).
Titles of short stories and poems should be enclosed
within quotation marks (e.q., “The Fall of the House of
Usher,” a short story, and “The Raven,” a poem, both
by Edgar Allen Poe”.
Avoid contractions and colloquialisms. (Soven 169170)
Many novice writers, even if they’ve written formal literary essays
before, are unfamiliar and unsure of what is expected of their essay
stylistically, so students should always be provided with a guide to
writing a stylistically proper formal essay that is tailored to the
expectations of each particular essay writing assignment. And
even though citing quotations with proper MLA documentation
should be practiced throughout the curriculum, distributing a
handout on the particulars of MLA citation such as the one at
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/QuotingSources.html
compiled by UW-Madison’s Writing Center can help to ensure that
students know how to document every type of source.
Once you have introduced the formal analytic essay structure and
students start drafting their essays, your initial focus should be on
structured content, the substance of their essay. And though the
Regents exam essays do not allow for peer reviews and multiple
revisions, these parts of the writing and revising process should be
taught to student writers. Peer reviews will not only allow your
students additional feedback, but will also help them to further
internalize the necessary components of the formal literary essay
and the qualities of good thesis development, which will hopefully
carry over to their own revision process. As teachers, in order to
not discourage our students, we should refrain from making any
spelling, grammar, or punctuation corrections on the drafts until
the final revision could be helpful. Throughout the initial process
of outlining and drafting their essays, we should encourage
students to get their ideas down, plan, organize, and develop them
before worries of minor corrections distract their thoughts while
writing and revising the content of their essay. Multiple revisions
of spelling, punctuation, and grammar can easily discourage young
writers and make them feel early on that they can’t succeed as
writers. As Soven says, “Intensive correction can destroy the
writer’s morale” (111). We need to allow students to hone the
major areas of developing and supporting the thesis before we
address minor corrections.
Maintaining Balance in the Writing Curriculum
In order to maintain something resembling high morale in the
English classroom and encourage passionate inquiry of literature,
we need to nurture the initial, personal student responses and place
a high value on student input and allowing them to develop their
own arguments and help them to arrive at their own conclusions.
Yet, we have to make them accustomed with writing formal
literary analysis at some point; inevitably they will be required by
the state to take the Regents exam. But, that does not mean that
the entire writing curriculum has to be chock full of repetitive and
dry formal literary analyses. As Lattimer aptly suggests, “Students
should not be required to respond with a formal analysis to every
text that they read or every genre that they study” (247). If we
want our students to translate their initial reflective response into
an effective, lively analytic piece of writing, we must not require
them to produce formal, in-depth analysis so often that the entire
process becomes tiresome or simply overwhelming. Lattimer
suggests that “studying and writing analytical responses two or
three times during the year, in conjunction with appropriate units
of study of a particular genre, author, or text, is effective” (247).
By not overusing formal written analysis and making ample use of,
and developing gradually, the reflective and creative responses as
well, it is entirely possible for us to maintain students’ interest in
literature and allow them creative liberties from time to time, while
simultaneously developing their critical thinking skills and helping
them to internalize the structure and feel of formal analytic writing
which will ultimately prepare them for the impromptu nature of the
formal analysis essays on the Regents exam. There is no
prescribed, perfect balance between the reflective, creative, and
analytic response; you must gauge what your students need as they
go, taking care to vary your approaches as a teacher to keep your
students interested in writing about literature so that they are
invested in the process enough to help them improve as writers.
Works Cited
Bomer, Randy. Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in
Middle and High School.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
1995.
Cooper, Charles R., and Lee Odell. Evaluating Writing:
Describing, Measuring, Juding.
Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1999.
Flower, Linda. “Writer Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for
Problems in Writing.”
College English 41 Sept. 1979: 1937.
Hesch, Robert. “Literary Essay Outline.” Whitney Point, NY:
2006.
Hillocks, George Jr., Bernard J. McCabe, and J.E. Campbell. The
Dynamics of English
Instruction. New York: Random
House, 1971.
Lattimer, Heather. Thinking Through Genre. Portland, ME:
Stenhouse, 2003.
Ponsot, Marie, and Rosemarie Dean. Beat Not the Poor Desk.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Boynton / Cook, 1982.
Probst, Robert. “Dialogue with Text.” To Compose: Teaching
Writing in High School
and College. 2nd ed. Ed. Thomas
Newkirk. Porstmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990.
Rosenblatt, Louise. Literature as Exploration. 5th Ed. New York:
Modern Language
Association, 1995.
Scarmedelia, M., and Cary Bereiter, and Hillel Goelman. “What
Writers Know: The
Language Process and Structure of
Written Discourse.” The Role of Production
Factors in
Writing Ability. Ed. Martin Nystrand. New York: Academic
Press,
1982.
Soven, Margot. Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary
Schools: Theory, Research,
and Practice. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon, 1999.
Young, Art and Toby Fulwiler. When Writing Teachers Teach
Litrature: Bringing
Writing to Reading. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 1995.
Appendix I
Sample focus questions:
Focus
Questions
First Reaction
What is your first reaction or
response to the text?
Describe or explain it briefly.
Feelings
you? What emotions
feel as you read the text?
What feelings did the text awaken in
did you
Perceptions
text? Paraphrase it—
major events briefly.
What did you see happening in the
retell the
Visual images
the text? Describe it
What image was called to mind by
briefly.
Associations
mind—of people,
What memory does the text call to
places,
events, sights, smells, even of something more
ambiguous, perhaps feelings or
attitudes?
Thoughts, ideas
by the text? Explain it
What idea or thought was suggested
briefly.
Selection of textual
Upon what in the text did you focus
most intently as you elements
read—what
word, phrase, image, or idea?
Judgments of importance
What is the most important word in
the text? What is the
most important
phrase in the text? What is the most
important aspect of the text?
Identification of problems
text? What is there
What is the most difficult word in the
have the most trouble
in the text or in your reading that you
understanding?
Author
the author of this text
What sort of person do you imagine
to be?
Patterns of Response
How did you respond to the text—
emotionally or
intellectually? Did you feel involved with the text or
distant from it?
Other Readings
How did your reading of the text
differ from that of your
discussion
partner (or others in your group)? In what ways
were they similar?
Evolution of your reading
How did your understanding of the
text or your feelings
change as you talked?
Evaluations
one—why or why not?
about it
Do you think the text is a good
Literary Associations
Does this text call to mind any other
literary work (poem,
play, film,
story—any genre)? If it does, what is the work
and what is the connection between
the two?
Writing
If you were asked to write about your
reading of this text,
upon what
would you focus? Would you write about some
association, some memory,
some aspect of the text itself,
about
the author, or about some other matter?
Other readers
What did you observe about your
discussion partner (or the
others in your group as the talk progressed)?
Appendix II
Using the Fable Assignment to Teach the Essay
Ponsot and Deen begin instruction in fable writing with what they
call a diversionary tactic. They give a lesson in punctuation—how
to use quotation marks, commas, and paragraphing to punctuate
dialogue. They then suggest that students practice using these
punctuation marks by writing an imaginary dialogue using the
following guidelines.
Imagine in the world of the imagination, it is the middle of
the night in the middle of a countryside through which a
road runs. A horse is coming down the road and meets a
bear. For your first paragraph, write what the horse says
to the bear.
Now for paragraph two, write what the bear says to the
horse.
In paragraph three write what the horse says to the
bear.
All of a sudden a storm breaks out—lightning, thunder,
rain. Write a sentence or two about paragraph four.
In paragraphs five and six write one more exchange
between the horse and the bear.
Now skip a few lines and write, “the moral of this fable
is…”
When students have written the final sentence, they begin to
experience a “sense of accomplished structure.” After they read
their fables aloud, they discuss what it was like to write them.
Ponsot and Dean argue that this method helps students to gain a
concept of form that carries over to their writing of exposition.
Appendix III
Teaching the Introductory Paragraph (Sarah Myers-McGinty. The
College Application Essay. P. 46. New York, New York: The
College Application Board, 2004.)
The General-to-Specific Introduction
This type of introduction does not outline the paper. Instead, it
draws the reader into the topic slowly, leaving the presentation of
individual points to the body of the essay:
A general statement (in the topic area)
More specific statements that lead to thesis
Thesis (main idea)
Here is an example of this type of introduction for the same paper
on the novels of Dickens:
The nineteenth century took the family seriously. Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert were a model family, the
parents of nine children. And in the novels that were meant
to be read to the family group, family connections and
relationships were major themes. Charles Dickens felt the
presence of these themes and, as the unhappily married
father of 10 children, knew what family life was like. His
novels, however, often present the family in a rather
inverted manner.
This introduction slowly defines the areas to be discussed and
gradually brings the reader to the topic. The sample begins with
the nineteenth century and nineteenth-century families, then goes
to Dickens’ own family, and finally to the families in Dickens’
novels. The actual novels are not named, but the topic is suggested
in the last sentence.
Appendix IV
Student Samples of Introductory Paragraphs (Murphy, Barbara L.
and Estelle Rankin. 5 Steps to a 5: Writing the AP English Essay.
Pp. 143-5. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.)
Student A
The culmination of moral reconciliation and spiritual awakening is
most evident at the end of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. This
gradual enlightenment, rather than a sudden epiphany, is
portrayed through Milkman, the heroic character of the novel.
Comments
This brief, but on-target, introduction indicates a student writer
who is in control of his or her subject. Not only does the writer
state the subject and purpose of the essay, but he or she also
employs mature diction and presents insights using phrases such as
moral reconciliation and spiritual awakening, and rather than a
sudden epiphany to point out an inherent contrast.
Student B
In her op-ed piece, “Pretty Poison,” Maureen Dowd examines and
modifies Anna Quindlen’s earlier insight into the categorized life
span of a woman, that is, “pre-Babe, Babe, and post-Babe.”
Reflecting on the new “Botox-injection craze,” Dowd facetiously
updates Quindlen’s classifications to, “pre-Babe, Babe, BotoxBabe, and Cher.” Ms. Dowd employs variety of rhetorical devices
to expose the absurdity of the female ideal of presenting herself as
a younger, more attractive woman than she believes she is.
Comments
This introduction clearly presents both the subject and purpose
together with the writer’s definite attitude toward Ms. Dowd’s and
Ms. Quindlen’s topics that this student refers to with quotations
from the op-ed column. Using words such as craze, facetiously,
and absurdity, the reader also becomes aware of an upcoming
“prickly” analysis of the columnist’s presentation.
Student C
The reader of Norman Mailer’s passage walks away with great
empathy for Benny “Kid” Paret and a better understanding of
what it was like in that arena the night of his massacre. Mailer’s
diction, syntax, and use of specific animal imagery recreates this
event with a dichotomous tone and a sense of the bestiality of the
“sweet science.”
Comments
Here is a student who has a definite point of view and is not afraid
to make that point of view known to the reader who is brought
immediately into the essay. The writer’s tone is obvious from the
very beginning with the use of words such as massacre, and
bestiality, and the thesis incorporates the prompt without a bland
restatement of its purpose and object.
Appendix V
Student Samples of Concluding Paragraphs (Murphy, Barbara L.
and Estelle Rankin. 5 Steps to a 5: Writing the AP English Essay.
P. 169. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.)
Student A
Throughout history, the rich and famous have enjoyed privileges
that the common man hasn’t been allowed. Many current headline
stories reveal the depth to which money and fame can infect the
justice system. Meanwhile, those clothed in “rags” continue to get
shafted by a system they do not influence nor control.
Comments
This conclusion aggressively finalizes the writer’s position. With
no rehashing of the prompt and no repetition of the thesis, this
student leaves his reader with an implied challenge—do you dare
to agree or disagree with me?
Student B
In any case, that’s what it comes down to. The Calvinists believed
that wealth was a sign from God that a man had been pre-selected
to reside in heaven. So, our wealthy folks are really heaven-sent.
Perfect angels don’t need laws anyway, right?
Comments
Using a sarcastic rhetorical question to end this essay is a thoughtprovoking way for this student writer to make his or her own voice
and point of view heard loudly and clearly.
Appendix VI
Literary Analysis Web (taken from Mary Ledbetter’s Helping
Students Meet and Exceed Writing Standards. P. 88. Bellevue,
WA: Bureau of Education and Research, 2005.
Appendix VII
Sample Literary Analysis Essay (taken from Sebranek, Kemper,
and Meyers’ Writers Inc: A Student Handbook for Writing and
Learning. P. 229. Wilmington, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.