How to Write an Essay About

Literature
What Does a Literature Essay Do?
• Katherine Acheson, in Writing Essays About Literature,
suggests that a literature essay should present

“a clearly written argument, based on evidence, about the

meaning, power, or structure of a work or works” (4).

• Contains all the key components you’ll be graded on:

• Clearly written
• Argument
• Based on evidence
• About meaning, power or structure
• Of a work or works
 Argument
• Essay takes up a controversial position
• “leaves room for debate,” not “shocks your conservative grandma”
• Articulates that position in its simplest, most direct form
• reader should understand perfectly what the author
intends to say—no guesswork or suspense
• In an academic essay, argument is stated outright and early
on, usually in the introduction (often the first paragraph)
• introduction acts like a map for the reader—it is essential that the
reader knows the destination before beginning the journey
A Work or Works
• Essays in this class will pursue arguments about a particular
literary work (1st essay) or a series of related works (2nd essay)
• Requires careful, close reading of those works
• Need to demonstrate that you are an expert on the work in
question to establish your authority. Demonstrate:
• You have thought about all relevant details
• You know your works intimately
• You have chosen your works wisely
Evidence
• Next to the thesis, the most important element of your essay
• A brilliant interpretation is only speculation unless it’s backed
up by strong, specific, well-chosen evidence
• A thesis says “This is what I think this work means.”
Evidence says “This is what makes me think the way I do.”
• Think in terms of both quantity and quality:
• Good evidence = awesome
• Enough evidence = awesome
• Enough good evidence =
• Topic and assignment guidelines dictate how much is enough.
 Evidence
• Two kinds of evidence for essays: primary and secondary
• Primary = here’s what the text says
• Secondary = here’s what other experts say about the text
• Argumentation must be methodical:
• Thesis proven through series of supporting claims
• Supporting claims proven through specific examples
• Relationship between examples and claims explained clearly
• Relationship between claims and thesis explained clearly
• Clear, logical relationship between supporting claims
 Evidence
• Thesis: In “Persimmons,” Li-Young Lee uses the poem’s form to
create moments of interpretive confusion that mimic the
speaker’s experiences of confusion about his hybrid identity.
• Supporting Claim: Lee uses the poem’s stanzaic structure to
invite the reader to engage in multiple readings of his central
symbol, echoing the speaker’s own uncertainty about meaning.
• Evidence for your thesis can be broken up into three basic parts
• A SETUP that states and contextualizes the supporting claim
An EXAMPLE (direct quotation) that shows the claim is true
• An EXPLANATION of how the EXAMPLE proves that claim
• In other words, help your reader SEE (Setup, Example,
Explanation) the validity of your claims
Lee uses the poem’s stanzaic structure to invite the reader to engage in multiple
readings of his central symbol, echoing the speaker’s own uncertainty about
meaning. The end of the first stanza, for example, ends with a notable
enjambment:
In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision. (1-7)

The enjambment encourages multiple readings. By placing “How to choose” in the
first stanza despite its more obvious grammatical connection to the first line of the
second, Lee invites us to consider that it might be difficult to distinguish between
the words persimmon and precision, which are phonetically similar, especially to a
bilingual speaker. However, the rupture in both sentence and stanzaic structure
caused by the line break also encourages an alternative reading: that choosing
persimmons, which the speaker will go on to explain is a process involving skill and
knowledge perhaps not obvious in American culture, is itself a form of precision.
This use of form unsettles our assumptions about the stability of language and
induces a moment of interpretive duality that mimics the speaker’s experience
navigating two languages and two cultures.
 THIS IS EXTREMELY
IMPORTANT
• In a literature essay, you must support your claims with direct
quotations from the text(s) under discussion
• The study of literature is the study of the complicated ways that
language can be used to make meaning
• The details of that language constitutes our most convincing proof
• While paraphrases can be useful for very general points, they
should be used sparingly
• AN ESSAY WITHOUT ANY DIRECT QUOTATIONS CANNOT PROVE
ITS CLAIMS CONVINCINGLY AND WILL BE GRADED ACCORDINGLY
• Sorry for the yelling, but it’s important to get this across now
 Meaning, Power or Structure
• A literature essay argues what a work means (this can be more
than one thing) and how it creates that meaning
• Meaning, generally, refers to what idea(s) the poem/story
explores and what attitude it takes toward those ideas (themes)
• Power refers to the effect the poem has on us as readers and
why the author wants to produce that particular effect
• Structure refers to how the poem is “built” or “arranged” in
order to convey the meaning/power of the poem
• Often deal with more than one or even all of these at once
Clearly Written
• This one is last because it impacts everything else
• “Clear writing” includes a number of related elements:
• Structure/Organization: how the overall argument is laid
out and how easy it is to navigate that layout
• Paragraphing: how each set of related ideas is grouped
• Sentences: how you structure and convey a single idea
• Word choice: how effectively, clearly, and concisely you
express ideas in your sentences and paragraphs
• Mechanics: how well you facilitate comprehension and
convey authority through mastery of the conventions and
norms of spelling, grammar and punctuation in English
Clearly Written
 Clearly Written
• People (me) judge you on the way you present yourself in writing
• Expectation is your essay will be thoughtful, articulate, and clear
—lending credibility/authority to your argument
• Shows you know and care about your audience (peers, TAs,
professors, lovers of literature, well-educated people, etc.)
• The little things matter:
• Norms of English spelling and grammar in university setting
• Details of formatting (MLA 8th Edition Style Guide and the
Essay Writing Checklist)
• Anticipating reader’s needs (detailed explanations, clear sign-
posting, meticulous documentation, etc.)
• Writing an essay is a process: planning, writing, editing (repeat?)
Start From the Topic Prompt
• Establish what you think the question is asking (there will
usually be a degree of latitude here)
• Not necessarily right or wrong answers, but more/less
interesting ones, and more/less convincing ones
• Generate a set of keywords or concepts related to the topic
• Using those keywords, establish a rough list of texts you
could potentially use to explore the topic
 Now read those texts…
• With a list of potential texts, read your notes over again with
key words/concepts in mind, to find the best text(s)
• Underline/highlight anything you think might fit into the topic
• Look for patterns—common themes, techniques, structures,
etc. that you notice throughout the text(s)
Make notes and keep
track of your ideas
 Choose a Text
• After you’ve found as many texts as you can (on the syllabus)
that address your topic, and…
• You’ve located as much relevant evidence in all of those texts as
you can, then…
• It’s time to select the one(s) to focus on (you can always change
your mind)
• Which text interests you the most? Which one seems to have a
good combination of quantity and quality of evidence?
• ie. Which has enough material, but especially enough
material about which you have something interesting to say
 Research Question
• With a topic and a text, start moving toward a thesis
• Review your notes/annotations, focus on patterns and questions
• A good thesis usually answers a question about interpretation
• Because I’m horrible (or awesome…it’s hard to tell sometimes),
I’ll mostly give you essay prompts that are more like statements:
“Comment on…” “Discuss…” etc. You’ll have to come up with the
question yourself.
 Research Question
• Patterns lend themselves to good research questions:
• “What’s the deal with all the connections between the natural
landscape and religion in Young Goodman Brown?”
• What’s with all the italicized interjections by Kersi’s parents in
“Swimming Lessons?” How do they connect to Kersi’s story?
• Why does Li-Young Lee use so much sensory imagery (touch,
taste, smell, colour) in “Persimmons?”
• Why are hyperrealistic artificial flowers the focus of Baldino’s
meditation on trans bodies/identities?
 Answers to Research Questions
Make Great Theses
• Not a Thesis: In “Persimmons,” Lee uses lots of vivid sensory
imagery having to do with touch, taste, smell, and colour.
• Not Really a Thesis: In “Persimmons,” Lee uses lots of sensory
imagery having to do with touch, taste, smell, and colour to paint a
vivid picture of his experiences in the minds of his readers.
• A Thesis: In “Persimmons,” Lee uses vivid sensory imagery to make
a distinction between intellectual and experiential knowledge.
• A Strong Thesis: In “Persimmons,” Lee uses vivid sensory imagery
to highlight the difference between experiential and intellectual
knowledge, a difference that illustrates the internal conflict the
speaker experiences with respect to his hybrid Chinese-American
identity.
 Thesis
• Coming up with a good thesis statement is half the battle
• Can be helpful to think of this literally: you might spend half of
your essay-writing time defining and refining that thesis
• Writing the thesis statement, and the brainstorming/editing that
goes with it, should be both the first and last thing you do
 BEWARE!
• Important difference between an analysis and summary
• These statements are summaries of the texts in question:
• Lee uses a lot of sensory imagery in “Persimmons.”
• Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” ends in an unexpected way,
refusing to give us the moral we expect of a Christian allegory.
• Cisneros uses a style that mimics how children think and speak to
convey the life of a girl living in poverty near the US-Mexico border.
• A thesis must go beyond this to talk about WHY these stories do
these things. How do they help us understand the meaning,
power or structure of the work?
• Look your thesis square in the eye and say, “So what?”
• If it doesn’t answer you satisfactorily, you don’t have a thesis yet.