NOTE: To change the image on this slide, select the picture and delete it. Then click the Pictures icon in the placeholder to insert your own image. WRITING A LITERARY ANALYSIS

WHAT IS A LITERARY ANALYSIS? A literary analysis, or “response to literature” is when you write about your ideas about something you’ve read. It is argument writing because you use evidence from the text to support your ideas. You hope to convince people to accept your interpretation of the story. hat is a literary analysis ? What is the purpose of writing a literary analysis ?

What’s in a Literary Analysis?  Summary  Give a brief description of the plot and important characters  Claim  After you have read with a lense, gathered details, and found patterns, what is your idea about the story?  Supporting Evidence  These are details that support the claim and build the argument. These details can be quotations from the story, a paraphrase from part of the story, details from the story, and your own knowledge.  Analysis  This is where you give your interpretation of the story. For example, you could examine the theme and then discuss what it means or how the characters get the theme across to the readers.

LITERARY ANALYSIS AND THE 6 TRAITS OF WRITING

ARGUMENT WRITING RUBRIC

IDEAS  Your writing goal: Writing shows an in-depth understanding of the text. Quotations support the writer’s claim and are accurately referenced.  Your topic: Choose a story we read during the unit on friendship:  Rikki-tiki-tavi  User Friendly  Mother and Daughter  Artemis Fowl  Choose an essential question that you think is a theme of the story:  Is it better to be friends with people who are like you or not like you?  What are the characteristics of a good friend?  What is the value of a true friendship?  How can we find and strengthen friendships?

Ideas  The next step is to gather details from the story that are related to the essential question you chose.  For example, if my story is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” and my essential question is Is it better to be friends with people who are like you or not like you? I would look for times in the story when it was good that Harry had friends who were different from him and times when it wasn’t.  Next, find the patterns in the details you gathered.  For example, I noticed that Harry’s friends most often have different talents, interests, and personalities from him. When they work together as a team, they can use those talents to help. Luna Lovegood was teased because of her belief in things that other people couldn’t see but Harry was her friend anyway. Spoiler alert - Luna’s beliefs and talents ended up helping them defeat Voldemort.

Ideas  Finally, decide what the story you chose has to say about the essential question. Your idea about this is the claim for your essay. In other words, how does the story answer the essential question?  For example – “The book ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ shows that it is a good thing to have friends who are different from you.”  Notice that the title of the story and the answer to the essential question are included in my claim.

ORGANIZATION  Your writing goal: The introduction is engaging and states the claim, the reasons and evidence are organized logically, and the concluding section is strong.  Now is the time to organize your essay. Use the four square method to organize your thoughts.  What makes an introduction engaging?  To organize your reasons and evidence logically, think about sharing them:  in the order they happen in the story, or  going from the most important to least important reason or vice versa.  To make a conclusion strong, make sure it refers back to the claim and sums up the reasons that support your claim.

Page 1 – Deconstruct the prompt P rompt / Q uestion Copy the prompt or question. T ask What are you supposed to do? What are the requirements? A udience Who am I writing this for? B ackground The facts and situation behind the task.

Page 2 – Read and take notes Title of TextPrompt Question During First Reading Questions and Connections After First Reading Main Idea/Author’s Claim During Second Reading Details and Evidence After Second Reading Gist 20 word Summary

Page 3 - outline Introduction Hook – Background – Claim/Thesis – Summary Introduce the main characters and the basic plot. Reason 1 Evidence/Elaboration Reason 2 Evidence/Elaboration transition

Page 4 - outline Reason 4 Evidence/Elaboration Reason 3 Evidence/Elaboration Opposing Claim Rebuttal to opposing claim with evidence Conclusion Restatement of Claim – Recap of Reasons – Call to Action – transition

Draft Writing goal: A consistent formal style and personal voice engage the reader and support the writer’s claim. A formal style means you are writing for school, not a text message. Use complete sentences and words. Do not use slang or other informal language. A personal voice means that it sounds like you when you write. Your style and ideas should come through in your writing. It does not sound like you just copied something out of a book – you put things into your own words. Writing goal: Precise language is used. Words and phrases are used to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among the ideas. Precise language means using specific nouns and adjectives, not generic ones. It also means using literary terms such as “theme, plot, setting, irony, characterization, foreshadowing, etc. Use transition words to connect your ideas. Transition words can show: Order (after, during, first, next, often) Compare and Contrast (also, although, however, similarly, another) Cause and Effect (as a result, because, so) Place (above, around, by, near, next) Showing support (for example, for instance, in fact)

Revise  One thing to look for is making sure you have some quotations from the story. Put quotation marks around the exact words and put the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence.  For example, “He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye with a film over it.” (pg. 228)  Make sure you have all the parts to a literary analysis -  An introduction that ends with your claim.  A summary that introduces the main characters and basic plot.  Supporting reasons with evidence that back up your claim.  An analysis that gives your interpretation of the story.  A conclusion that restates your claim and reasons.  Make this writing your best by editing for complete sentences, spelling mistakes, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. A good way to catch mistakes is to read your essay backwards (by sentence).