How to write an essay or "paper" about literature:

Quick guidelines:

Set up a question
* Your thesis insight
Show that that problem IS there
      Define terms in your question
Your explanation of how to see your thesis in the literary work (any historical or background information we need to know? Plot structure?)
Guide us through evidence
*consider alternative readings and interpretations of ambiguous parts, elements that can mean more than one thing

An interpretive paper needs to make a thesis point—to assert your vision of what you are reading--even if the point you are making is subtle.

In my classes, having a thesis is a basic criterion for earning a grade of B or higher for the essay. If you are afraid that your being creative or subtle might make me overlook your thesis, please find a way to point out where your thesis idea is. 

The basic components of a literature paper are:

* Make sure to give the reader a vivid experience of the literary work. Lead your reader along YOUR path of reading the work (not necessarily in chronological order!). Quote phrases or whole passages along the way to bring in the writer's voice. Lead reader through Introduction (with thesis), Body, and Conclusion.

* Show how your literary work raises a problem or question, which your essay will work on

* Provide a thesis idea, presented as a STATEMENT (not a question, although the thesis can state that a specific question is raised) that makes a specific interpretive or explanatory point.

* If you are using key terms as a framework through which to read your literary work, define those terms. List the criteria that you will apply to the work, in order to show what you see through each term.

Explain your criteria for how you know that you are looking at "satire"? a "great American novel"? an "elegy"? a "metaphor"? etc. etc.

* Use block quotations to ensure that you are showing readers your writer's voice. When you use block quotations, treat each as a chunk of evidence placed in the middle of a paragraph. DON'T INDENT right after the quotation -- go on to comment on the quotation. Make sure that your commentary is at least as long as the quotation!

* Consider alternative interpretations! Some critics have remarked that classic literature opens itself to engage many readers. It would be limiting to show that you only see one reading, your main one, all along the way. Show your awareness of how different interpretations could branch off at pivotal points in the literary work. Imagine readers asking different questions from those you are asking.

Detailed guidelines: If you feel that you have mastered this form, you could reorganize elements of this basic structure:

In top left margin, give

your name

title of course, section number, instructor's name (Dorn)

title of assignment, date

            Title (centered) – in quotation marks, not italics. Convey your paper’s key idea.

INTRODUCTION: Launch right into the job of leading your reader through the work. Set up a question, issue, or insight

• make sure to introduce the title and author of each work you are addressing [underline book titles, quotation marks for parts of books-stories, poems]
• Don’t refer to the class assignment (practice writing for the public, as a professional)

What aspect of the work provoked you to think about a particular concept for approaching the work (examples: as “character contest,” as defamiliarizing, as dreamwork, etc.)? What aspect of the work raised a question in your mind?
(Optional- method: spell out the possible ways of answering that question. What will this paper do?)

Thesis—close the introduction by stating the specific insight you came to about the piece, after thinking about it in these terms. A thesis may be more than one sentence, but it cannot be a question unless you are arguing that the question IS where we must arrive. (Usually you find out what your thesis is after writing your first draft.)

BODY: Cover the following – in any order that works for you:
* Show that there IS an issue, a need for insight. Demonstrate that this literary work does raise the question that interests you, invites us to interpret (to “complete the text,” as Text Book calls it). What aspect of the work provoked you to think about this particular framework or question?

[If your paper involves outside research, explain how historical and cultural information, or the work of other scholars, makes you raise a question about your text.]

Often, showing that the piece does raise that question involves leading your reader through main elements of the work, describing vividly how you experience the reading of it.

* Define terms. Through what lens or framework will you be reading the literary work (character contest, dreamwork, defamiliarizing)? That is, explain the kind of question you are asking the work. Explain fully how your key term works. What CRITERIA are set by your chosen term/framework? [What are all the components of a character contest, for example? If we are using the term metaphor, or dream, or surreal, what would  we expect from the poem, writer, or character, etc.? ]

* Figure out what you see in the literary work when you look at it via all your criteria. NOTE – you don’t have to force the literature to fit your term and get a particular answer. All you are doing is asking the work a question by using the term/framework. Choose to discuss in the paper especially those elements of the work that cast light on the criteria you have identified and the question you are asking.
            You will now work through the literary piece at length, guiding us and showing how key elements in it are pivotal to your attempt to interpret. READ CLOSELY: That means, QUOTE phrases from the literary work and explain how specific phrases of language in each quotation guide you to read and interpret in the way you do. How does the text build your interpretation of the whole? Convey the voice of the literary work, as well as your own voice.

* Consider alternative readings. But reading closely usually means finding out more than what you expected, or getting ambiguous answers to the questions you are asking. Since very few literary works are “closed systems”, you should look for places in the work where a reader ends up deciding among possible meanings, and so sets up different interpretations of the whole piece. As you rewrite your essay, at least acknowledge how there are alternative, differing ways of looking at the same quotations or plot, differing arguments to be made. Adapt yours, or explain why you prefer it.

CONCLUSION – What you learned from the process. Even if you felt the term didn’t perfectly fit—the Contest wasn’t equal, the poem turned out very unlike a dream—state what you found out anyway: the poem forces us to be real about our lives; the character is hollow, superficial, alienated—whatever you seized on.
By now, you should be ready to write your thesis insight, and move it up into your intro.
Lastly, rewrite your conclusion also to leave us with a key vision, last important impression, of what your essay found out.