Literary Analysis: A Beginner's Guide to Writing a Literary Analysis Essay
Summary
TLDRThis video script offers a comprehensive guide to writing a literary essay. It distinguishes literary analysis from rhetorical analysis, emphasizing the importance of close reading to uncover details like metaphors and literary devices. The script outlines the essay structure, including an introduction with a thesis, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. It advises using evidence from the text to form a thesis and create an outline to maintain focus. The script also highlights the need to avoid writing a book review, to consider every detail as potentially significant, and to fully understand the work before writing.
Takeaways
- 📚 A literary essay differs from other types of essays like argumentative or expository essays, focusing on the details and literary devices within the text.
- 🔍 Rhetorical essays analyze the manner of communication, while literary analysis looks for metaphors and connections between elements in the writing.
- 📝 The structure of a literary essay includes an introduction with a thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
- 🌀 The introduction should be funnel-shaped, starting broad and narrowing down to the thesis, while the conclusion is the reverse.
- 👀 Close reading is essential for literary analysis, focusing on details rather than providing a summary.
- 💡 While close reading, ask questions about the text to uncover its deeper meanings and the author's choices.
- 📑 Use a highlighter or notes to mark significant parts of the text during close reading to track interesting elements.
- 📈 Formulate a thesis statement that aligns with the essay prompt and serves as the essay's aim.
- 📋 Create an outline to ensure the collected evidence supports the thesis and maintains focus in each paragraph.
- ✍️ Write the essay body first, then the conclusion, and finally the introduction, ensuring it follows the funnel shape.
- ✅ Edit the essay using tools like Grammarly and consider using synonyms to enhance the writing.
- 🚫 Avoid writing a book review; instead, provide an analysis based on findings from the text.
- 🔎 Do not overlook any detail in the text, as authors make deliberate choices and everything is relevant.
- ⏳ Take time to fully understand the story, characters, and literary devices before writing the essay.
Q & A
What is the main difference between a literary essay and a rhetorical essay?
-A literary essay focuses on the content and looks for metaphors and connections between elements of the writing, while a rhetorical essay focuses on the content as a piece of communication and the manner of language used.
What are the key components of a literary essay structure?
-A literary essay structure includes an introduction with a thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
What is close reading and why is it important for writing a literary essay?
-Close reading is reading the work from a different perspective, focusing on details rather than the general big picture. It's important for literary essays because it helps in understanding the story's elements and identifying literary devices.
How should you approach reading a literary work for a literary analysis?
-You should read the work closely, focusing on details, and ask yourself questions about why certain events happen or why the author chose specific words to describe characters.
What is a thesis statement and why is it important in a literary essay?
-A thesis statement is a clear statement of the essay's main argument or focus. It's important because it guides the essay and informs the reader about what the essay will discuss.
How can you ensure your thesis statement aligns with your essay's content?
-You can ensure alignment by regularly checking whether your essay's content still fits the thesis statement and adjusting the thesis if necessary.
What role does an outline play in writing a literary essay?
-An outline provides structure to the essay, helps ensure that the evidence collected fits the thesis statement, and prevents adding new, unfinished ideas to the essay.
Why should the introduction of a literary essay be written last?
-The introduction should be written last because it should follow the funnel shape, starting broadly and ending with a specific thesis statement, which is clearer after writing the body paragraphs.
What are some caveats to consider when writing a literary essay?
-Caveats include not writing a book review but providing an analysis, not overlooking details as everything in literature is relevant, and not rushing into writing the essay without fully understanding the work.
How can you enhance your writing in a literary essay after it's written?
-You can enhance your writing by using tools like Grammarly to filter out errors, and by using synonyms to enhance your vocabulary.
What is the purpose of analyzing a literary essay written by an AI like GPT in the context of this script?
-Analyzing an AI-written literary essay serves as a challenge and a way to understand the capabilities and potential of AI in literary analysis and writing.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to Literary Essay Writing
This paragraph introduces the process of writing a literary essay, emphasizing the distinction between literary analysis and rhetorical analysis. It outlines the structure of a literary essay, which includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The introduction should contain a thesis statement and follow a 'funnel shape', while the conclusion should be the reverse. The paragraph stresses the importance of close reading to identify details and metaphors within the text, which are crucial for literary analysis. It suggests asking questions while reading to better understand the author's choices and to link these observations to the thesis. The paragraph concludes by advising students to use tools like highlighters and sticky notes to track significant elements in the text.
🖊️ Crafting a Literary Essay
Paragraph 2 delves into the steps for writing a literary essay after close reading. It advises formulating a thesis statement that aligns with the essay prompt and is flexible enough to evolve as new evidence is found. The paragraph underscores the utility of creating an outline to ensure that the collected evidence supports the thesis and to maintain focus in each body paragraph. It also cautions against introducing new ideas in body paragraphs that do not align with the thesis. The paragraph recommends writing the essay starting with the body paragraphs, followed by the conclusion, and only then crafting the introduction, which should be broad initially and become specific, ending with the thesis statement. The paragraph concludes with advice on editing the essay using tools like Grammarly and emphasizes the importance of not writing a book review but providing a literary analysis, considering every detail in the text as relevant, and not rushing the essay writing process but instead fully understanding the work before writing.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Literary Essay
💡Rhetorical Analysis
💡Close Reading
💡Thesis Statement
💡Funnel Shape
💡Outline
💡Evidence
💡Analysis
💡Literary Devices
💡Editing
💡Caveats
Highlights
A literary essay differs from argumentative, expository, or problem-solution essays.
Literary analysis focuses on metaphors and connections within the writing, unlike rhetorical analysis which focuses on communication.
Literary analysis examines details in the story, while rhetorical analysis looks at language and communication style.
The structure of a literary essay includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
The introduction should include a thesis statement and follow a 'funnel shape'.
Close reading is essential for literary analysis and involves examining the text from different perspectives.
Questions to ask during close reading include 'why does this happen?' or 'why these particular words?'
Literary analysis of a poem focuses on literary devices, while a story or novel may require a different approach.
When analyzing 'Flowers for Algernon', consider why the main character leaves flowers and the book's title choice.
Look for other references to flowers, blossoming, or blooming in the story to support your thesis.
Close reading involves noting things that stand out, using highlighters, sticky notes, or pencil markings.
The thesis statement should answer the prompt or question and be the aim of the essay.
The thesis statement can be changed as new evidence or examples are found during writing.
An outline is useful for checking if collected evidence fits the thesis and prompt.
Each paragraph in the outline should focus on one thought and not introduce new ideas.
The introduction should be written last, following a 'funnel shape' from broad to specific.
Editing involves using tools like Grammarly and enhancing writing with synonyms.
Avoid writing a book review; instead, provide a literary analysis focusing on findings, not personal opinions.
Do not overlook anything in the text, as authors make deliberate choices and everything is relevant.
Understand the story, characters, setting, and literary devices before writing the essay.
ChatGPT can also write literary essays, as demonstrated in an upcoming video.
Transcripts
when you need to write a literary essay
it's important to know how to do that
because writing a literary essay is
different from writing argumentative
essay an expository essay or something
like a problem solution essay now it's
important to know that a literary
analysis or a literary essay is
different from a rhetorical analysis or
a rhetorical essay a rhetorical essay
focuses on the piece of content as a way
or piece of communication whereas a
literary analysis looks at the content
finds metaphors and looks at links
between elements of that writing so a
literary analysis looks at details in
the story whereas a rhetorical analysis
focuses on details in the language and
the manner of communication
now before we dive into what you need to
do when you want to write a literary
essay we should look at the structure
like all other essays this essay also
has an introduction it has some body
paragraphs and it has a conclusion
in your introduction you want to include
a thesis statement and you want to make
sure that your introduction follows the
funnel shape the conclusion follows the
upside down follow shape more on that in
the linked video
now to start your literary analysis you
need to read the work closely and to do
this by practicing close reading now
close reading is not literally closed
reading it's reading the work from a
different perspective now this means
that you're not looking at the general
big picture of the story and you don't
do this because you don't have to
provide a summary you're looking at the
details you're looking at the things
that make the story a good story a
literary analysis of a poem focuses a
lot on literary devices but a literary
analysis of a story or a novel might
take a different approach now while
you're close reading you want to think
of questions that you might ask yourself
like why does this happen or what does
this mean or maybe why does the author
choose to use these particular words to
describe the character that we're
reading about
answering those questions will
definitely help you while you're
practicing your close reading for
example when you're reading Flowers for
Algernon which you should I'll put the
link in the description you want to
think of something like the flowers for
Algernon why did the main character
leave flowers on elginon's grave and why
did the author decide to name the book
Flowers for Algernon now when we know
that we're focusing on the flowers we
want to look for other clues in the
story that point towards these flowers
because there are some other references
to flowers or blossoming or blooming and
dying throughout the story and if we can
link those things together to our thesis
we'll have a good literary analysis but
before we get there we need to practice
close reading so I need to think of
things that stand out while I'm reading
the novel one thing I recommend my
students to do is to use a highlighter
or a pencil to mark down things while
you're reading
so keep track of interesting things by
using sticky notes making some notes or
just highlighting parts of the text now
after you've collected your evidence we
can move on to actually formulating our
thesis statement
if you have a prompt or a question your
thesis statement should be the answer to
that question or should be in line with
the prompt that you've you're given when
we read your thesis statement we should
know what you're going to talk about in
your essay now keep this in mind because
the thesis statement is the aim of your
essay your thesis statement is still
malleable though so even when you're
writing you find some other examples or
some other evidence that fits your
prompt better than the one that you've
made up you can always change your
thesis statements it's never set in
stone
and it's always very useful to check
whether you're still doing what you set
out in your thesis statement because you
can end up with something else in your
essay and that doesn't really fit your
thesis statement anymore then you
definitely want to adjust your thesis
statement so that the reader or your
teacher still knows what you're going to
do in your essay
after you've formulated your thesis
statement you can move on to creating
your outline now outlines are very
useful when you're writing a literary
essay because by using an outline you
can check whether the evidence you've
collected in previous steps still fits
your thesis statement and thus still
fits the prompt or question that you
were given
using an outline also gives structure to
your essay and if you want to learn how
to write an outline check out the link
in the description
for now it's important to know that when
you're creating your outline you still
follow peel or txxc or you're using
levels to create your paragraphs now
keep this in mind when you're creating
your outline
each paragraph should focus on one
thought and cover this thought
extensively don't add new ideas to your
paragraph if it doesn't fit the content
of that particular paragraph the outline
is key here using your outline to check
whether your paragraphs are focused will
only ensure that you don't add new ideas
and thus unfinished and unsupported
thoughts to your essays and while you're
working on your outline you can still
regularly check whether you're doing
what you set out to do in your thesis
statements this will only ensure that
you have a good essay and that your
essay will definitely be of high quality
finally after you've done your outline
you can sit down and write your essay
now don't make this mistake that only
beginners make don't start with your
introduction
your introduction should be written at
the end and the reason for this is that
the introduction should follow the
funnel shape which means that it starts
very broadly and ends specific with your
thesis statement
now if you don't know what you're going
to write about in your essay you don't
know what you need to put in your
introduction
so that's why the first thing that you
write when you're sitting down and ready
to write is your first body paragraph
write your body paragraphs and end by
writing your conclusion don't forget
check regularly whether your topic still
fits the thesis statements and the
prompts that you were given after you've
written your conclusion you can start
over and write your introduction so
after you've closely read your work
you've collected evidence you've built
your thesis statement an outline and
you've written your essay you're done
and you can do the editing part which is
putting it through grammarly filtering
out your grand scale errors and maybe
use some words some synonyms to enhance
your writing
now there are some caveats that you need
to think of when you're creating and
when you're writing a literary essay now
the first caveat is that you're not
writing a book review you're writing a
literary analysis and that means that
you shouldn't give your opinions but
give findings from the piece of work of
course you need to think about it and
say something useful about the content
that you've read but you're not giving
your opinion you're not focusing on what
made you feel or how you felt while
reading the story you're focusing on
findings things that stand out in your
work so the first caveat don't write a
review provide an analysis the second
caveat is overlooking things sometimes
people think well this is not very
important we don't need to focus on this
but remember that authors make
deliberate choices they put things in
their pieces of work for a reason
everything is relevant in literature so
don't overlook things and don't put
things in the bin because you think it's
irrelevant everything is in a story free
for a reason and finally and I think
this is the most important caveat you
should think of don't haste your way
into your essay fully understand the
story the characters the setting the
scene the literary devices before you
start writing you don't want to write an
essay that's superficial because you
want full marks so before you start
writing whatever you need to do focus on
understanding the story or the piece of
writing or the piece of literature first
if you're writing a literary analysis of
flowers by Miley Cyrus listen to the
song a gazillion times and make sure
that you understand everything is there
a word you don't know in the story look
it up is there something that makes no
sense check it before you start writing
don't haste your way into your essay but
fully comprehend and understand
everything of the piece of work that
you're analyzing before you write the
essay and so these are the steps you
need to take when you're ready to write
a literary essay did you know that chat
GPT can also write literary essays I
took up the challenge and I analyzed a
literary essay written by chance GPT so
make sure that you're subscribed and
have your notification Bell on so that
you know when this video will be out
for now if you found this video useful
please consider giving a thumbs up don't
forget to subscribe so that you know
when one of my other videos will be out
let me know in the comments what is the
prompt that your English teacher gave
you
thank you for watching and I hope to see
you in one of my next videos
foreign
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