Reading Literature to Write Analysis: Fiction in the Composition Classroom Karen McLeer, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English UW-Richland Thank you to the Office of the Provost for the UW Colleges and to OPID for their support of this project. I am also indebted to the students in my Fall 2013 ENG 101 courses and to student assistant Khalid Abdl-Haleem. Students in ENG 101, Critical Reading and College Writing, are expected to move toward mastery of two goals related to analysis: 1) Analyze and evaluate the rhetorical features of a text to understand writing strategies used to communicate ideas; and 2) Develop a cohesive, source-based, analytic essay. The UW Colleges English department recommends the use of non-fiction texts for teaching analytic skills. The rationale is that students could study the author’s rhetorical strategies and then make those same rhetorical moves in their own writing. My question: If a student analyzes and evaluates the rhetorical features of a literary text, such as a short story, can s/he achieve the same goals of rhetorical awareness and development of analytic writing skills? Two sections of ENG 101 received the same introduction to rhetorical analysis which included textbook reading, lecture and discussion, practice exercises and a quiz. Quiz questions asked students to demonstrate the following skills:  Describe the goals of rhetorical analysis  Assess a thesis to determine its effectiveness for analysis  Explain the importance of genre for rhetorical analysis Average scores for both sections were comparable. Students in Section 1 read a short story “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter. Students in Section 2 read a non-fiction essay “Carol Dweck’s Attitude” by David Glenn. Both sections were given the same assignment: Write a critical analysis of the text’s content, stylistic features and rhetorical context that forms conclusions about the writer’s text and his ability to fulfill his purpose. Student essays required a demonstration of the following skills related to analysis:  Create a thesis that forms an evaluation of the text  Focus analysis on writer’s ability to achieve his purpose  Explain techniques used by the writer to communicate with the audience  Use features of genre to explain text’s strengths/weaknesses  Examine the rhetorical context of the text  Support analytic conclusions with textual examples Average scores from these rubric items were comparable. Section 1 slightly outperformed Section 2. The learning outcomes related to analysis were mastered at comparable levels by both groups. The selection of a short story or a non-fiction text did not significantly alter the students’ ability to understand rhetorical analysis or to demonstrate those skills in their own writing. I noted that my approach to teaching the short story was different from methods I use in my literature courses. Teaching literary analysis is not the same as teaching critical analysis. Observation of both classes showed that Section 1 was more comfortable with the task. They discussed the short story with greater enthusiasm and experienced fewer incidents of assignment perplexity during the drafting process. Rhetorical analysis is a new skill for many incoming freshmen. Reading fiction is not. Introducing a new concept (rhetorical analysis) within a familiar setting (fiction) eases their anxiety while supporting their ability to learn analytic skills and may prove more engaging for the students. Fiction is a useful tool for teaching analysis in the composition classroom. Section 1: Student with a median score of 3.2 Thesis of paper: “Charles Baxtor’s story uses an effective point of view, it is structured well and provides good descriptions and quotations, but unfortunately his story is overly detailed in some places.” Section 2: Student with a median score of 2.7 Thesis of paper: “In this article David Glenn effectively describes Dweck's experiments, studies, and studies similar to hers. He also shows a passion for Dweck's studies as well, but fails to have flow in his writing structure and fails to give a complete conclusion to end the article.” Question Part 1 Method and Results Part 2 Methods and Results Conclusions