LITERARY ANALYSIS: ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT IMPORTANT PASSAGES FROM YOUR READING

QUESTION: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ANALYZE A PASSAGE OF LITERATURE? ANSWER:  When analyzing a passage from literature, a writer is most often explaining why a particular passage is important to understanding the story.  The writer usually focuses on and explains how a particular literary device that is present in the passage unlocks meaning for the reader in some way.

SO WHAT ARE THE STEPS INVOLVED IN ANSWERING A QUESTION OF LITERARY ANALYSIS? Part 1: Read the question you are being asked very carefully. Read the passage the question is referencing very carefully. Underline or circle any important words in the question or the passage that could influence or should appear in your answer.

PART 2: REMEMBER TO USE THE WRITING PROCESS  Even if it’s briefly—which is often the case with in class writing on assessments--think about, plan, and make notes for what you are going to write.  Remember our discussion of the importance of prewriting: Answers are much easier to write with a bit of planning on the front end!

PART 3: WRITING YOUR ANSWER Step 1: Start by subtly referencing or restating the question you’ve been asked. Step 2: Tell who is speaking or being spoken to. Step 3: Be sure to incorporate the story’s title and author—can be worked into a sentence with other details, such as those from #1 and #2. Step 4: Place the passage in the context of the story.  For example: Where in the story does the passage occur—At the beginning? After an important argument between two characters? Immediately before a significant event in the plot action?  By placing the passage in the context of the story, you are showing you know where the passage is located in the story and the important events around it or that grow out of it.

Step 5: Interpret, or explain, the literary significance of what has taken place in the passage so that you can add strength and support to your answer.  THIS IS NOT PLOT SUMMARY!!  Although you might use a word or short phrase from the original passage, you should not re-quote the passage here.  The majority of the writing in this part of passage significance is YOU analyzing the passage.

SO IF I’M TO AVOID PLOT SUMMARY IN MY ANSWER, WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PLOT SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS?  Plot summary is simply saying this happens, then this happens, then this happens…  Analysis is saying WHY something that happens MATTERS.

HOW DO I WRITE AN ANSWER THAT SHOWS ANALYSIS?  We analyze the passage by linking to a literary device and explaining what makes this particular passage important to the whole story. For example,  Does passage to be analyzed reveal a crucial element of foreshadowing?  Does the passage to be analyzed provide an example of irony that, when linked with other examples of irony in the story, lead the reader to see the story’s theme?  Does the passage to be analyzed show the point of view of the narrator and then influence the reader’s opinion of other characters?

TAKE A LOOK AT THE NEXT TWO SLIDES FOR … (a) a question that would require an answer of literary analysis and (b) a sample answer to the question being asked

Here’s the question I’m being asked: Explain how this passage from “Checkouts” reveals the conflicts present in the story and helps to propel the later action in the story. Here’s the passage from the story that I’ve decided best shows conflict and that I will use to write my answer: “Her parents moved her to Cincinnati, to a large house with beveled glass windows and several porches and the history her mother liked to emphasize….And as an impulse tore at her to lie on the floor, to hold to their ankles and tell them she felt she was dying, to offer anything, anything at all, so they might allow her to finish growing up in the town of her childhood, they firmed their mouths and …said It’s decided” (Rylant 15).

NOW, HERE’S A SAMPLE RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION: In this passage at the very beginning of the story, the narrator introduces the reader to the conflicts present. One of the unnamed characters, an adolescent girl, is being forced by her parents to move to Cincinnati, away from everything she’s ever known: her childhood home, her neighborhood, and her friends. What the narrator would like to do instead is throw an old-fashioned temper tantrum; however, she is now old enough to know this behavior will have no effect. Because this passage occurs in the story’s opening paragraph, the author is setting up two of the story’s driving conflicts: one between parent and child but a larger internal conflict within the narrator herself that shows up repeatedly in the story as the character comes of age. 1.What is happening in each one of the color-coded sentences above that helps to answer the question? 2. Does the paragraph above follow steps 1-5 in Part 3 of writing an answer of literary analysis? It should. Go back and look.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! You are now going to put into practice what the previous slides have been discussing about literary analysis. Copy the instructions and sentence starters below into a Word document. After you have completed the sentence starters, you will copy and paste only your three completed sentences into a discussion board on Haiku. 1.In three sentences, analyze the use of marigolds as a symbol in Eugenia Collier's story “Marigolds.” 2.Each of your sentences should begin EXACTLY as the sentence starters below. 3.Make sure NOT to use the words I or YOU anywhere in your sentence answers. Sentence 1: In the short story "Marigolds" by Eugenia Collier, the author uses marigolds as a symbol of.... Sentence 2: At the end of the story, the narrator, Lizabeth, writes, "And I too have planted marigolds" (Collier 29). Sentence 3: With this statement, Lizabeth is saying that...

NOW PRACTICE FROM BEGINNING TO END… Here’s the question you’re being asked: Explain how this passage from “Checkouts” characterizes the relationship between the girl and boy in the story, thus leading to one of the story’s themes. Here’s the passage you should use: “The anticipation of meeting the bag boy eased the girl’s painful transition into her new and jarring life in Cincinnati. It provided for her an anchor amid all that was impersonal and unfamiliar, and she spent less time on thoughts of what she lad left behind as she concentrated on what might lie ahead” (Rylant 16).