Methodology
The General Question
Essay Writing
You are going to be faced with a broad question which you will apply to the study of two works of literature. The question will be something like:
Explore the role of women in two works of literature you have studied
Or
Explore the use of symbolism in two works you have studied
Or it might be more complicated in its formulation and say something like:
“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.” Do you agree with these words by Somerset Maugham? Discuss, using two works of literature.
Generally speaking, the writing exercise will ask you to write about any of the following things: character, theme, setting, tone, mood, symbolism . . .the focus of your literary studies!
What you need to do to write a successful essay.
- The introduction: should address the issue in the topic in a broad, somewhat universal way. Should then rephrase the question. Should finally drive and apply the question with your particular thesis statement and application, that is to say your approach to the topic within the concrete examples you will use. The reader should move from broad to narrow in your introduction and should end up knowing very concretely where this essay is going—should know, for example, that women in literature are often confronted with frustration and boundaries which they break by writing, in the case of Virginia Woolf, and by tragic and destructive means in the case of Medea.
Remember that it is not an essay about two works—find a thesis that brings these works together within the scope of your topic and in an interesting way.
- The body—once you have your thesis, you will have a road map for the rest of your essay. The thesis lets the reader know what you are arguing, so you need to take up its terms and use each part as a topic sentence within your body parts.
Take my women thesis above, for example. Logically, I now want to know first what the frustrations and boundaries are (and this discussion will start with CONTEXT); this discussion will be followed by how these boundaries are broken, in each case.
How to build? Is it better to take one work and then another or do a point by point analysis—up to you. You will not be faulted either way. Many students find it easier to do first one work and then the other—fewer chances of losing your way!
What’s important is that you sustain the argument proposed in your thesis and that you guide the reader along with able topic sentences and transitions from one idea to another.
Note: a transition is not a separate paragraph of a sentence or two that hangs between two other paragraphs. It is a signal word or sentence at the beginning of a new paragraph.
3.Evidence!!!! The depth of the evidence provided, the ability to produce and then analyze concrete evidence for your ideas marks the difference between a superficial and an effective essay. This is where proper notes and good study come into play !!!!!!
4.Conclusion—your argument has moved to a logical end, not a rehashing of the introduction! You have some final point to make as synthesis for what you’ve built and/or an opening out of this question to a larger context—it is easier for V. Woolf to transcend the barriers set by her society than it was for Medea, but the study of these texts show the hardships nonetheless endured throughout the centuries (ok, that’s not really very imaginative, but you catch the drift of what I am saying here).
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Writing a close reading of an unseen passage
Part I—decoding the text. What to do while you prepare. This passage will be an excerpt from something you presumably are unfamiliar with. It is your job to crack what you can and say something significant about it. Start inductively:
Read actively, with your pencil in hand. You are in the stage of gathering “evidence.” Try to ground yourself in terms of the context of the piece. When was the piece written? You will be given the writer’s dates under the passage, so pay attention to that as it might help you understand the passage within a historical timeframe. Work on discovering the genre and purpose of the passage—is it an excerpt from a novel or a prose essay? This important determination will help you decide the purpose of the piece. If it is an essay, is it addressed to a particular audience? What occasion prompts the piece, if any?
In other words, try to determine the who, what, when, where and why of the piece.
Once you have that down, take a look at the how. Underline anything you find to be significant in terms of themes, character, tone, imagery, setting, particularly for fiction. For non-fiction prose, consider persuasive devices such as rhetorical questions, anaphora, metaphors. Remember to go beyond locating these devices; you will need to analyze their use—this means explaining them and how the author uses them to advantage, so really think these through. Remember to consider the tone of the passage (review your tone vocabulary sheet)
Part II—building your close reading essay. Your job is to present something, now, deductively, which means you will offer an argument which you then will prove—nothing tentative here! No annonce de plan!! Your case depends on the strength of your foundation statement.
1.Take a look at your annotations and now try to organize your findings in a logical order (this is called an outline, by the way, for those of you who never do)
There is no magical formula, but:
2.Begin with an intro + thesis statement in which you reformulate, basically, the who, what, when, where and why of the piece as starting point and then drive the whole with a thesis statement that is the argument of your essay: this should be some statement of theme or character and should include some sense of the tone of the piece.
3.Depending on the piece you are working on, you will decide on the order of your essay’s body. If you are looking at a piece of fiction, and it is character that interests you, select paragraph units that best prove whatever statement you’ve made about that character in your intro. There is no magical formula for this, but you might not be best served to go through the whole passage chronologically if the piece is not persuasive as this may not necessarily be the best way to prove your point. Attack the task, then, thematically, to prove points you can make about that character, borrowing, too, from setting, imagery where relevant and looking closely at the character’s actions words, words said by others and the narrator’s words. Now, for an essay, the writer has a specific strategy so part of your task is going to be to pick through that strategy and redeliver it in your essay. You could spend a paragraph on this and work on the writer’s line of argumentation which you need to analyze: is there a progression of ideas from least important to most, for example? Think, actively, of the writer’s strategy (in the same way that you are thinking of yours); then go on to probe how that strategy is delivered, leaning on the devices of prose.
3.Everything you write needs some kind of conclusion. If this is a prose essay, can you address the relevance of what the author has said? If fictional, some final statement on what’s been learned about the character in the piece?
Note: your knowledge can help you decode but does not need to figure in your writing. You do not need to compare an essay excerpt to essays you have studied, but these can help you identify strategies. You can make connections, if you like, in your conclusion, but your job is to close read this passage and show your decoding and building skills rather than academically showing what you know about other pieces. Simlarly, noticing that a piece of fiction is written in the Romantic era can help you decode the piece and will help you pick things out because you know something about Romanticism, but your job is not to write about Romanticism—it is to write about that particular passage and what’s happening there.
___________________________________________________________________________
Writing a close reading of an unseen passage
Part I—decoding the text. What to do while you prepare. This passage will be an excerpt from something you presumably are unfamiliar with. It is your job to crack what you can and say something significant about it. Start inductively:
Read actively, with your pencil in hand. You are in the stage of gathering “evidence.” Try to ground yourself in terms of the context of the piece. When was the piece written? You will be given the writer’s dates under the passage, so pay attention to that as it might help you understand the passage within a historical timeframe. Work on discovering the genre and purpose of the passage—is it an excerpt from a novel or a prose essay? This important determination will help you decide the purpose of the piece. If it is an essay, is it addressed to a particular audience? What occasion prompts the piece, if any?
In other words, try to determine the who, what, when, where and why of the piece.
Once you have that down, take a look at the how. Underline anything you find to be significant in terms of themes, character, tone, imagery, setting, particularly for fiction. For non-fiction prose, consider persuasive devices such as rhetorical questions, anaphora, metaphors. Remember to go beyond locating these devices; you will need to analyze their use—this means explaining them and how the author uses them to advantage, so really think these through. Remember to consider the tone of the passage (review your tone vocabulary sheet)
Part II—building your close reading essay. Your job is to present something, now, deductively, which means you will offer an argument which you then will prove—nothing tentative here! No annonce de plan!! Your case depends on the strength of your foundation statement.
1.Take a look at your annotations and now try to organize your findings in a logical order (this is called an outline, by the way, for those of you who never do)
There is no magical formula, but:
2.Begin with an intro + thesis statement in which you reformulate, basically, the who, what, when, where and why of the piece as starting point and then drive the whole with a thesis statement that is the argument of your essay: this should be some statement of theme or character and should include some sense of the tone of the piece.
3.Depending on the piece you are working on, you will decide on the order of your essay’s body. If you are looking at a piece of fiction, and it is character that interests you, select paragraph units that best prove whatever statement you’ve made about that character in your intro. There is no magical formula for this, but you might not be best served to go through the whole passage chronologically if the piece is not persuasive as this may not necessarily be the best way to prove your point. Attack the task, then, thematically, to prove points you can make about that character, borrowing, too, from setting, imagery where relevant and looking closely at the character’s actions words, words said by others and the narrator’s words. Now, for an essay, the writer has a specific strategy so part of your task is going to be to pick through that strategy and redeliver it in your essay. You could spend a paragraph on this and work on the writer’s line of argumentation which you need to analyze: is there a progression of ideas from least important to most, for example? Think, actively, of the writer’s strategy (in the same way that you are thinking of yours); then go on to probe how that strategy is delivered, leaning on the devices of prose.
3.Everything you write needs some kind of conclusion. If this is a prose essay, can you address the relevance of what the author has said? If fictional, some final statement on what’s been learned about the character in the piece?
Note: your knowledge can help you decode but does not need to figure in your writing. You do not need to compare an essay excerpt to essays you have studied, but these can help you identify strategies. You can make connections, if you like, in your conclusion, but your job is to close read this passage and show your decoding and building skills rather than academically showing what you know about other pieces. Simlarly, noticing that a piece of fiction is written in the Romantic era can help you decode the piece and will help you pick things out because you know something about Romanticism, but your job is not to write about Romanticism—it is to write about that particular passage and what’s happening there.
