Writer's Guide

Literary Interpretation and Argument

Because this course bears the title Introduction to American Literature, our essays naturally take literature and culture as their subjects. Those of you who see in this course an obstacle to overcome along the way to that all important major should not assume that your writing for this course will only apply to the study of literature.. On the contrary, because literary analysis requires you to read texts closely, scrutinize language, formulate arguments, and develop your arguments with detailed evidence, the writing for this course will help you develop skills you will need in whatever field you pursue after you graduate. Lawyers, doctors, social workers, educators, businesspersons, politicians, scientists and people in every imaginable profession must astutely read a wide range of texts and persuasively articulate and defend arguments.

Culture and Language

As Stephan Greenblatt writes in his essay "Culture" from Critical Terms for Literary Study, we study literature to better understand culture. Because language consitutes the medium through which literature expresses and shapes culture, it must anchor our study of literature and culture. In each essay you compose for this class, I will ask you to focus relentlessly on how the language of a text--its words, images, figures of speech, sentence structures, symbols, characters, and more--communicate ideas about culture and the human condition.

Making an Argument

An essay of literary analysis does not require you to summarize a text for the reader. In this class in particular, your fellow classmates and I constitute your readers, and we have already read the text. This means you can move directly to your point both in your thesis and in each body paragraph. In your writing for this class you seek to argue for a particular reading of the text using the language of the text itself as your evidence. Through detailed analysis of this evidence you draw conclusions about what you think the text has to tell us about culture or our broader human condition. While this has a bit of a formulaic writing (Through language the text says blank), you can present this construction in many ways. Consider these examples:

Through references to madness, Shakespeare explores how political disorder in a state can both create and reflect psychological disorder in a potential ruler of that state.

Language or aspect of literary technique = images and language of "madness"
Argument about culture or human condition = state and individual disorder influence each other.

In Toni Morrison's Jazz, the extended "solo" of the final pages deliberately undercuts traditional notions of narrative and interpretive stability.

Language or aspect of literary technique = final extended "soliquoy"
Argument about culture or human condition = narrative and interpretation not as stable as we wish they were.

Think of your thesis as an equation argument = an insight or argument about culture or the broader human condition

Generating Ideas and Prewriting Ideas

Active Voice

Topic Sentence: Structuring Paragraphs

Developing and Advancing Your Interpretation in Paragraphs

Quotations

An Introduction to Introductions

Some Conclusions about Conclusions

Research Guidance