Literary analysis

I will need this

For this 3-5 page essay, you will use a scholarly article in order to forward an analysis of one of the texts we have read this semester. This means, your essay will do two things: 1. It will provide an overview of and a response to a critical perspective; 2. it will introduce your original analysis. That is, you will either agree with the critical assessment and add to it or disagree and forward an alternative understanding.

We have practiced this in class by looking at fairytales and then examining critical responses, including Bettleheim’s reading of “Cinderella” and Cummins’ reading of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Here are the tasks you must accomplish:

1. Select your text. You may write on one of the following;

“Cinderella”

“Beauty and the Beast”

Alice in Wonderland

Harriet the Spy

the work of Mo Willems (Don’t Let the Pigeon or an “Elephant and Piggy” book)

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig

Where the Wild Things Are

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

Charlotte’s Web

2 2. Find a critical article about your text. We have a librarian visiting class in a couple of weeks and they will help you with this step. However, I will discuss using “google scholar” and how you might request articles through Interlibrary Loan.

3. 3. Introduce your critical article, summarizing the author’s ideas

4. 4. Develop your own specific analysis, using quotations/specific references to the text.

It might be a good idea to figure out what you want to say about your text before you even start looking for an article to use.

The point of this paper is to demonstrate that you not only know how to analyze, but that you are also able to read and understand others’ interpretations as well as use them to supplement your own. Thus, you should either take a stand agreeing, disagreeing, or partly agreeing with the article you select. If you agree, you still have to take the critic’s interpretation further.

A few notes:

First, we always write about literature in the present tense.

Second, this paper should not rehash the readings we performed in class. Instead, you should develop
an original and compelling thesis.

Third, the most important part of this paper is the analysis. Analysis is the activity of taking something
apart and figuring out how it works; this is pretty much what we do in class. Your paper will be a
sustained and strategically organized analysis. Each paragraph should directly relate to and further
your overarching argument or thesis; each paragraph should provide evidence in the form of quotes from
the text, and each paragraph should include analysis of that quote. (Never end a paragraph with a quote!)