Outline/Works Cited - due in 36 hours
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WritingAboutLiterature.pptxWriting About Literature
The Basics
Parts of the Essay (a quick review)
All essays are made of three basic parts: an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. There is always just ONE intro and ONE conclusion, but the number of body paragraphs could range from three to a hundred!
The Introduction is made of a few important parts. It should begin with a hook, which is a sentence that grabs the reader’s attention. A hook could be an intriguing quote, a thought-provoking question, a relevant statistic, etc. Do NOT begin your paper with something vague and dull like “Since the beginning of time, humans have told stories” or “There are many plays in the world.” After the hook, you want to use several sentences to begin giving background about the play, story, book, or poem your essay will cover. This could include relevant information about the writer, the time period in which the piece was written, the style of the piece, and so on. You don’t want to give away any specifics here; you’re just preparing the reader for the REAL, in-depth discussion to come. Save the specifics for your thesis, which is the last sentence of your introduction and the most important sentence of the whole paper. The thesis will state your interpretation of the text as well as the supporting information you’ll use to prove that interpretation. In other words, you’re using this thesis statement to persuade me to agree with your take on the piece.
Finally, your introduction paragraph should, at some point, mention the full title of the work you’re covering as well as the author’s name. This can happen in the hook, background section, or thesis, but it has to be there somewhere. A good introduction should be at least five sentences long.
See the next slide for a sample introduction.
How much could really happen in just an hour? Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” proves that a person’s whole world can be overturned in very little time. This story was written during a period in which women were struggling for equal rights in their private and professional lives. Women of the period, like Mrs. Mallard and Chopin herself, were expected to be satisfied with being wives and mothers. Chopin, in fact, did not begin writing until she lost her own husband, at which point she felt free to practice her craft. “The Story of an Hour” is symbolic of women’s struggle for freedom during the early twentieth century, as evidenced by Chopin’s careful naming of the main character, the physical and chronological setting, and Mrs. Mallard’s response to her husband’s supposed death.
A Color Key:
This is the hook. Its only job is to get your attention – save the serious stuff for later!
This is the background information. I’ve used some historical info about the time period and about the writer that are relevant to my central point. There are three sentences of background (which is the minimum), but you can certainly write more.
This is the thesis statement. It tells you my interpretation (that the text represents women’s struggle for freedom/equality) AND the supporting points I’ll use to prove that interpretation (characters’ names, setting, and Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death).
The main “meat and potatoes” of your paper will happen in body paragraphs. For a short paper, you’ll only have three (one paragraph for each supporting point in your thesis). For a long paper, you’ll have multiple paragraphs for each thesis point, but your paper should still be divided into three sections (one multi-paragrah section per thesis point).
A good body paragraph begins with a topic sentence, which gives an overview of what the main point/idea of the paragraph is. It then gives supporting evidence from the text to prove your point, through a mixture of your ideas, quotes from the text, and in the case of research papers, quotes from outside sources. A body paragraph ends with a transition sentence that leads into the next paragraph (unless it’s the last body paragraph of the paper, in which case you can leave the transition off).
You’ll see a sample body paragraph on the next slide.
Reminder: this was our thesis statement: “The Story of an Hour” is symbolic of women’s struggle for freedom during the early twentieth century, as evidenced by Chopin’s careful naming of the main character, the physical and chronological setting, and Mrs. Mallard’s response to her husband’s supposed death.” That means my first body paragraph will be about naming the main character, since that was the first supporting point listed in my thesis. Here is what that first body paragraph might look like.
Chopin’s choice of names for her characters is one symbol that suggests the story’s theme of women’s desire to be free. Mrs. Mallard’s name, of course, is that of a migratory duck, or more simply, a bird. Of any animal that might represent freedom, perhaps birds are the most prominent, and Chopin describes Mrs. Mallard with an animalistic desire to break free of a cage. After learning of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard thinks of “a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome” (66). The image of Mrs. Mallard opening her arms, of course, aligns closely with the spreading of a bird’s wings as it is about to take flight. Similarly, Mrs. Mallard is, she believes, about to take wing into a new stage of her life in which she is unburdened by the duties of marriage. As with the character’s name, the setting Chopin has chosen also symbolizes Mrs. Mallard’s desire for freedom and independence.
Color Key:
Topic Sentence: lets you know this paragraph is about character names (notice how it links right back to the thesis statement)
Support Sentences: I’ve used elements from the story to back up my idea, including a brief quote from the text with the page number after in parentheses.
Transition Sentence: Links the paragraph I just wrote with the one to follow (about the setting)
The conclusion paragraph is the last paragraph of your paper, and should be a minimum of five sentences, but can be longer. (Just so you know, I have a particular pet peeve – I HATE short, wimpy conclusions. It’s a real paragraph, so save some writing steam for it!)
The conclusion has a couple of important jobs. First, it needs to revisit the ideas of the thesis. Notice that I did not say “restate,” because when students hear “restate,” they copy and paste their theses word for word into their conclusions. No way, Jose! You simply want to revisit, or sum up the ideas one at a time. Go back over each supporting point you made and talk about it just one more time so it stays fresh in the reader’s mind. The thesis should not introduce any new ideas about the text! It is meant solely for review and summary of the paper.
Hint: For those of you who attend church, think about how a sermon is laid out. The minister begins by telling you which verse or lesson he’ll be discussing that morning and what he wants you to get out of it (the intro & thesis!). Then, he spends the bulk of the sermon giving you supporting ideas in the form of his own experiences, observations, and Bible verses (body paragraphs!). He finishes the sermon by reviewing the main ideas he’s covered and telling you how to apply them (the conclusion!).
For those of you who like to watch courtroom dramas like Law and Order, think about how a trial is laid out. First, the lawyers give their opening statements in which they argue in a general way about why their client is guilty or innocent (the introduction). Then each side takes its turn presenting specific evidence to prove they’re right (body paragraphs). Finally, the lawyers give closing statements to sum up the important things covered in the trial for the jury(the conclusion). Are you seeing a pattern?
Assertion & Support
Assertion and Support are the building blocks of every paper you’ll write this semester.
An Assertion is an argument/stance/interpretation of a text. It is your opinion of what the particular text means or represents on a deeper level. We make our assertions in our thesis statement. That is the moment in the paper where you lay out simply what you believe the text means/represents and how you will prove it.
Support is what it sounds like - the supporting evidence you’ll use to back up your assertion. There are three main types of support:
Quotes from the text. This is your main go-to method of support, and the only one you’ll use for now.
Quotes from other writers about the text. (If you’re writing about “The Story of an Hour,” you can look up other scholars’ essays about it and use quotes from those essays in your own paper to back up your stance. We’ll talk about how to cite/give credit before you do this.)
Quotes from experts in related fields. I wish students would use this more! An example here might be to read a history expert’s account of women’s rights at the time “The Story of an Hour” was written to further support your assertion.
Summary VS. Analysis
Summary means to recount the plot of a play, story, or other work of literature. When you were young, you probably wrote book reports that were, in essence, summaries. Summaries are a NO-NO in this class. Here is an example of a summary of “The Story of an Hour” which is, again, what you should not be doing.
“The Story of an Hour” is about Mrs. Mallard. She thinks her husband died in a train accident. When she hears this, she feels a little sad at first, but then she gets excited. She is happy because she doesn’t have to be married anymore. She sits in front a window and says, “Free” over and over. Later, her husband walks in the door and she sees him and has a heart attack. Everybody thinks it’s because she was happy to see him, but it was really because she was mad and shocked he was still alive.
Analysis is when you analyze, interpret, dissect, and give your opinion about a given text. It goes beyond what happens on the page and into the larger implications or meanings of what happens. Here is an example of a very short analysis of “The Story of an Hour.” This is more what you should be going for.
“The Story of an Hour” uses a real life or death scenario to depict the quiet struggle that women of the time period experienced in marriage and society. By using symbols like Mrs. Mallard’s name and her sitting in front of an open window, Chopin depicts the character’s desire for freedom from the confines of marital expectations. Although Chopin makes clear that Mrs. Mallard’s husband loved her and was not unkind, she also shows us that even kind marriages in this day hampered women’s independence. Mrs. Mallard’s ultimate death is all the proof we need: her disappointment at seeing her husband alive after celebrating her new-found freedom is literally lethal.
