Minimum literary analysis skills for high school for the non-literary kid

[elegantlion]

I almost hate to ask, but what would you consider minimum literary analysis skills for high school. This is for a kid that will probably never willingly take a literature class in college (unless it's a required general ed). I'm not worried about how much he's reading and he has the basics down  - like stuff you would find in Figuratively Speaking. So far we've been doing analysis via discussion and some written work - mostly inspired by SWB lit analysis lectures. He did his first analysis paper and it was close to awful - the analysis was meh to okay, the paper was just minimal (working on that too). His summation of Lord of the Flies was "stuff happened, things went bad."  :lol: He has other talents, but I doubt he will ever write a beautiful literary analysis paper. 

 

At the colleges he's considering, it seems most of the freshman English classes are composition only - I'll have to double check that at a few places. So, how much more should I require? I'd like to get him into understanding themes a bit better, and get to a decent basic literary analysis paper. He'll have a decent reading list -not stellar compared to some here, but decent for him. 

 

Next year we're focusing on American Lit, the next year will be a mix of world lit. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I taught an intro to lit class in coop a year ago.  The students had a wide range of abilities.  What I hoped each came out of the class with included:

 

The ability to read a short story or novel and realize that while some of the story was straight forward, some of what was happening would need to be inferred.

-As an example, there are references in The Most Dangerous Game to both the protagonist and the antagonist having been in WWI, with the horrific trench warfare experience that entailed. These are men who have seen a lot of death.  To some extent that experience illuminates the boredom that each have with daily life.  Similarly in To Kill a Mockingbird, there are some things happening just offstage that the narrator only hints at, because the narrator is supposed to be a child, with a child's understanding. The reader is expected to be able to connect the dots and understand what the references hint at.

 

A growing understanding that word choice is intentional. Metaphor, parallelism, repetition of words or themes are used by the author to try to elicit a particular resonance in the reader. This goes for all sorts of symbols.  Sometimes the passage of time dulls the effect of these choices. Things that were shocking in 1850 don't shock anymore. References go unnoticed by the modern reader who doesn't recognize the lines from The Lay of the Last Minstrel or a similarity to the government ministers of the past. Sometimes a good study guide helps. I like to read with my computer at hand to look up references I don't know. 

 

I would like students to realize that not every word put into a character's mouth represents the true opinion of the author. I had one student turn in a paper that included an intense theological argument against something a character had said. Unfortunately he attributed the opinion to the author, missing the point that the character was actually speaking of the opinions of another, not pleasant character. The author was holding these views up for critique, not approval.

 

In analytical writing, the student is tasked with making a case and laying out the evidence for his opinion.  I described this as something like the final arguments in a court case. The student is accusing the author of using symbolism to stand for blighted marriages or is accusing Elizabeth Bennett selling her honor cheaply having seen the grandeur of Pemberly. It is up to the essay writer to gather together evidence and lay out the best argument for his accusation.  This approach isn't too far off from a good movie review. It goes beyond just recounting what happened and critiques how well the author accomplished what they set out to do.

[1Togo]

I consider the ability to write a basic lit analysis paper the minimum, and "Windows to the World" does the best job of that of anything I have found.  Well worth the one semester.  After Wttw, I would just practice with a few papers and read/discuss.  Our oldest dc, an accounting major, had to take English 101/102 and one literature course.  He was not prepared for the writing in the literature course even though we had read/discussed, and he understood lit elements.  The WttW material would have done the job for the lit writing.  As it was, we hired a tutor for the final paper, and I helped as well.

[In The Great White North]

I got away with using a basic "compare and contrast" format for all my lit classes.  Even if it was supposed to be about a book, I could always compare it to something.  My 10th grade Expository Writing got this down to a science and it came in very handy in college.

[Lori D.]

I can only speak about the freshman comp classes at the CC and local universities in our area. They all do include some reading of Lit. for class discussion (participation is part of the grade) and writing (reader response papers, basic lit. analysis essay). So for those classes, the minimum literary analysis skills would be the ability to discuss -- probably much like what you and DS already do -- and get those thoughts down onto paper.

 

Here's an example of what one DS had as assignment in a freshman comp class: "Read the short story "The Dead Boy at Your Window" (Rogers), and write a 100-300 word reader response that addresses the characters of the parents in the story." DS used what few references to the parents that there were to show how their different approaches contributed to the development of identity in the Dead Boy, in 1-paragraph of about 225 words.

 

In the freshman comp classes here, there is a focus on the mechanics of writing in the first semester, and learning how to write the research paper with citations in the second semester, so the amount of Lit. that is covered is usually a handful of short stories, maybe a novella. Probably more Lit. in the first semester. One DS had a teacher who required writing in all 4 areas (descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive), so DS actually had to write 1000+ words towards a short story.

 

So, what a class requires as far as lit. analysis may vary widely from school to school, and even from teacher to teacher within the same school.

 

 

JMO: in answer to your original question: I would probably just continue to plug along with your Literature in high school as you are already doing with DS. It's good for DS to be exposed to classic Lit., and to support his opinions and thoughts with specific examples / facts / details for whatever writing, meeting, and discussions he'll have in the future on a job and in real life. ;) And,  thru your lit. studies, DS will have what he needs in case a future college freshman comp class ends up requiring some lit. analysis and/or reader response papers.

 

 

For getting a "decent basic lit. analysis paper" :) from DS… Well, you're in the midst, and his writing will improve as he does more writing. Your DS's Lord of the Flies analysis sounds a lot like the early responses our DSs had.  :) Perhaps next year, check out a few sample papers together and compare with his work to see what might be missing or needs more details, and then one at a time (and maybe take several papers for practice),  start adding in any of those things as the thing to work on including in the next writing assignment. This is a handy overview of "how to write a literary analysis essay" at the high school level, that may help with deciding what skills to practice next year.

 

Also, sometimes DC work harder and put more honest effort in when working for someone else, so at some point in the next 2 years, having DS do a few papers with a tutor, or live local class of some sort can spur a lazy or "don't care" student into putting forth more effort… (Both DSs worked harder and cared more when writing for someone other than me.) Just a thought!

 

You have two more years for his analysis and writing skills to increase, and I'm sure they will, as a natural part of his overall maturing. :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I thought of one more thing that I emphasized with my class.  You aren't required to love every work of fiction. You don't have to think the author did a good job at what they set out to do.

 

You should be able to read the work and use examples from the text in your analysis of it.  In other words, I didn't let them just say that they thought it was boring or that they didn't like a character. I asked them to demonstrate how the character was selfish, or irrational or not well portrayed or inconsistent. 

[Nan in Mass]

We aren't a literary analysis family.  I did try to teach my children how to support an argument pulling evidence from a book in hopes that they would be able to survive an intro lit or composition class, but I was much more interested in making sure their technical writing skills were solid and that they could tell a story.  Both of those seemed much more useful to me.  Teaching mine to write a rudimentary literary analysis essay actually required a ton of work.  Their organization was horrible and they had no idea how to elaborate and expand on things.  (In their defense, it IS pretty stupid at a beginning level.)  For youngest, taking a few weeks and running through the Shaffer material, practising with Beatrix Potter books, helped with this.  Snipping up their essays and reordering the sentences also helped.  It was a horrible few weeks and we were really thankful to be through and call it done.  Shaffer is an extremely stiff way of organizing things and youngest abandoned the formula after a few essays, but afterwards, his "stupid" essays were much better.  His good essays, the ones where he really had something to say, were better organized afterwards also.  The object of those few weeks was to be able to survive intro college classes.  So far, middle one has survived Humanites 1+2, youngest Intro to Music, and they both have survived CC Comp 1.  As far as life skills go, the technical writing, the story telling, and having internalized the questions in TWEM are what will (and has) really been important.  (Remember that these are STEM people.)  TWEM picked up where Writing Strands left off.  Writing Strands made them aware of the sorts of things writers have to do when writing.  They seemed naturally to be aware of word choice decisions.  TWEM questions have allowed them to discuss literature and movies in an interesting way.  I see examples of this almost weekly in my family as my 20-something children tell me about books they've read, people they've met, and movies they've seen.  What they tell me is interesting and insiteful and goes beyond plot summary.  I doubt they could turn their observations into a well written literary analysis paper.  They can tell a story reasonably well.  And they can bang out technical papers quickly and fairly easily.  Discussing books and movies interestingly and telling stories are important social skills in their clan, and they need the technical writing for school and work.  I'm just hoping they won't ever have to write a literary analysis paper again.  So are they.  I think, though, that they could probably figure it out at this point, if need be. : )

 

Nan

[swimmermom3]

Sometimes I think we make literary analysis into a 20 foot tall menacing gargoyle when in fact, it's really more like Mike in Monster's Inc. Maybe I feel that way because I am halfway done with my third and last high school student and I am tired these days. Elaborate schemes that promise to cover everything just don't offer up their previous siren call.

 

After ds finished his AP English Language class this month, I thought long and hard about what made the class so worthwhile. To distill those thoughts down to one sentence would result in something along the lines of "Focus on a few skills and practice them until you do them really well."  The students in that class worked hard, but there was no busy work. I suspect that English literature will be the same next year.

 

Part of what you are most likely working against right now is teenage guy malaise. Like Lori suggested, keep plugging away. Read and talk about works you enjoy.  Or find something that is gripping to read, but with really despicable characters, which you can argue about. Also, my job in teaching literary analysis is much easier when we tie our literature to our history. It seems as though my son has a good deal more to argue about when we do that.

 

Also, whatever you do, keep it simple for both of you. I wonder if you could create short lessons from a resource like How to Read Literature Like a Professor (flip tones and teen boys go well together here) and do a couple of short stories or a novella to illustrate the point. So instead of "Now we are going to study narrators, characters, descriptions, irony, ambiguity, plot, scene, dialogue, and literary element after rhetorical device," what if you pull some of that book's broader themes like eating as an act of communion, the consuming spirit of the vampire, or "there is really only one story."

 

This isn't much help, but do keep in mind that while it may look like at this point that a truly well-written literary analysis is out of your ds's reach, I suspect, being your son, that with a year or two of maturing under his belt, you are going to be stunned at what he is capable of. My 19 yo blows me away on a daily basis and most of it is really exciting. :grouphug:

 

[Kareni]

  For youngest, taking a few weeks and running through the Shaffer material, practising with Beatrix Potter books, helped with this.  Snipping up their essays and reordering the sentences also helped.  It was a horrible few weeks and we were really thankful to be through and call it done.  Shaffer is an extremely stiff way of organizing things and youngest abandoned the formula after a few essays, but afterwards, his "stupid" essays were much better.

 

 

Nan,

 

I'd appreciate it if you could you give more details about the Shaffer materials you mentioned above.  The name is not ringing a bell for me.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[swimmermom3]

Nan,

 

I'd appreciate it if you could you give more details about the Shaffer materials you mentioned above.  The name is not ringing a bell for me.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Nan, you had an awesome post a while back where you talked about the Shaffer materials and about "snipping." Perhaps you or someone else (Lori?) knows where that thread is? Your "snipping" technique was employed here in 8th grade and it was really helpful.

[Kareni]

Ah, with some searching I found a few older threads that address the Schaffer Writing Program (slightly different spelling than above).

 

Wow! I think I fixed my son's writing!...

 

Just wondering what WTM'ers think of the Jane Schaffer Writing Program

 

s/o of a s/o: implementing ideas for preparing our kids for college-level writing

 

Regards,

Kareni

[swimmermom3]

Ah, with some searching I found a few older threads that address the Schaffer Writing Program (slightly different spelling than above).

 

Wow! I think I fixed my son's writing!...

 

Just wondering what WTM'ers think of the Jane Schaffer Writing Program

 

s/o of a s/o: implementing ideas for preparing our kids for college-level writing

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Kareni, thanks so much for finding those. For a long time I just printed Nan's posts and stuck them in a binder. We are forever in need of unusual remedies, and Nan can be counted on for those. She and regentrude are the masters of keeping things simple and focused and someday I hope to homeschool like a combination of both of them. :D

[lewelma]

I think that you could completely skip literary analysis of fiction, and focus solely on nonfiction.  When I went to Duke, they required Freshmen Composition (no APing out), but half of the options were on nonfiction.

 

Ruth in NZ

[elegantlion]

These are great tips. I've been getting beaten at chess by ds for the last few hours, so now I need to read through your helps again. 

[Nan in Mass]

Just remembered something else I did with youngest. He read one of the simpler Assimov books and had to tell me what the author accomplished in each ... paragraph? page? chapter?... can't remember but it wasn't a large amount. I gave him some choices like "tells reader more about the character", "continues the plot", "describes where the action takes place", etc. It forced him to see how a book is constructed. I think in our case it was more valuable to go through one simple book paragraph by paragraph rather than doing lots of books in less depth. Depth isn't the right word. We didn't discuss the book at all and it wasn't a deep book. He just read through it and thought about the purpose of each paragraph. We didn't need to do any more books because after he'd done that for one whole book, he gotten the idea. He had already read quite a lot of literature, by our family's standards, and read through the short-history-of-the-genre bits of TWEM a few times each and internalized that question list so that he automatically paid attention to that sort of thing as he read. We did this towards the end of literature-at-home. I had him read something like ten pages a day of the Assimov book, something short so that writing up the purpose wasn't laborious. Looking back, I can see that a big difference between the English curriculums I've seen (not many) and what we did was our emphasis on doing whole books. If we were doing doing something that needed lots of repetitions through the whole cycle, I just used really short books (hence the Beatrix Potters). If we were doing something that needed lots of examples within one book (like this project), I used a longer book. I wasn't trying to do anything really complicated or high level, though. And I have to say, Writing Strands, awful as it was, definately laid in the groundwork for all this, even thought I didn't know that was what it was doing until after we began TWEM.

 

I'm glad somebody found the information about Shaffer. If I remember correctly, the method is described pretty well on wikipaedia. Shaffer is horrible, too, but it was what my youngest needed at the time and he even said he passed along the information to some of his friends this year when he realized they had no idea how to write essays (techie university lol).

 

Nan