| Perhaps the most difficult part about writing an essay is
figuring out what you want to say. The first step in writing a
literary analysis essay is to figure out what the author is trying to
communicate. There are a variety of approaches to doing so, and
you can read about some of the approaches at other websites:
I approach analyzing literature by trying to figure out what the
author wants to communicate to me by considering the choices the author
made in writing a particular work. For example, I might wonder
about
- who an author has chosen to tell the story,
- where the author decided to begin the story,
- where the author decided to end the story,
- why the author chose the title,
- how the author decided to sequence the events of the story,
- what the author meant to communicate through the setting,
and so on. The questions are endless, but it's difficult to
think about them in the abstract. Most questions jump out of the
work you're reading by somehow standing out and making you wonder about
them.
I've created a worksheet for figuring out
what you think about literature. You should
complete it after reading a work of literature and before planning your
essay. It's a tool to help you think about what you've read and to
help you figure out what you think and what you want to say. It is
not the same as planning an essay, which helps you think about how you
want to say what you have to say.
In order for you to understand how to use the worksheet for pondering
literature, please read "The
Lottery," by Shirley Jackson. Once you've read it
carefully, review the worksheet on it I've
completed as an example of how to use it. If you find it a helpful
tool, feel free to use it.
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