Literary Analysis Recommendations?

[Cake and Pi]

What do you recommend for teaching literary analysis? What I want is a curriculum that uses upper-elementary level interest books to teach middle or high school level analysis. I might be in need of a book or resource that is aimed at the instructor and from which I could learn how to teach these concepts to my students with books of our choosing.

I am looking for something to use with my 8yo (12th grade reading level but little interest in fiction unless it is math-related, e.g. The Man Who Counted) and 10yo (typically does well 6th-7th grade level books but is dyslexic with 12th grade level reading comprehension and 1st grade level fluency).

 

My DS 12 did the Online G3 Lightning Lit 7&8 classes last year, and I still have all the materials from them. I liked the LL7&8 curriculum and the G3 classes were excellent, but I worry about 1) DS 10 having difficulty with some of the reading selections and 2) DS 8 probably not being particularly interested in most of the books. The selections for LL5 look good for both of them -- closer to interesting for DS 8, readable for DS 10 -- but the curriculum sample I got from the publisher didn't seem to contain much in the way of actual literary analysis, instead emphasizing recall-level reading comprehension and grammar/mechanics.

 

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter!

[8filltheheart]

The best lit analysis you can do at any age is understanding what the author is saying by understanding why they chose the words they did. Learning how to understand allusions can make them feel like detectives uncovering clues. Simple allegories can help them develop the skills of understanding multiple levels of meaning. (The Chronicles of Narnia books are great for Christian children to see how authors layer meaning.) 

I wouldn't focus on reading level as much as interest level and books that lead to sparking interest in why authors do what they do. (The Imaginarium Geographica books are full of allusions. Percy Jackson books could be read in parallel with mythology, etc.)

Edited February 23, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[EKS]

10 hours ago, Cake and Pi said:

I might be in need of a book or resource that is aimed at the instructor and from which I could learn how to teach these concepts to my students with books of our choosing.

I don't have any ideas for such a resource, but I think you're on the right track about how to go about it.  

4 hours ago, Florimell said:

I think that finding themes (i.e. thematic statements, not motifs) is really the heart of literary analysis, and kids need some life behind them before they can really see and articulate fully the larger issues in a story that has enough depth for sustained literary analysis (not stories written for young readers where the messages are often overt and heavy handed).

I totally agree with both points--not that I am a huge expert, but I do have a master's degree in the humanities, and as part of that we had to analyze quite a bit of literature. 

I've never thought about kids' difficulty with literary analysis--otherwise highly intelligent and insightful kids--as being related to a lack of time on earth, but it makes perfect sense.  I've always thought that the reason literary analysis papers are used as a starting point for learning the basics of essay writing (aside from the fact that most high school English teachers were English majors) is because, in a sense, you don't need to bring a huge amount of outside knowledge to the task.  The world of the text is in the text.  But that isn't exactly true--the literary part of literature resides not within the text but where the reader meets the text.  In other words, what the reader brings to the text is just as important as the text itself, and if the reader's worldview is not yet developed, as is surely the case with the worldview of a teen, then any sort of analysis that is attempted will be limited.

I wish I had realized the above ten or twelve years ago!

[Cake and Pi]

4 hours ago, square_25 said:

What kind of literary analysis are you looking for? What do you want them to practice doing?

I'm not sure, as I'm not an English language arts kind of gal. Everything Florlmel and 8FillTheHeart listed sounds great, though. My own liberal arts education is sorely lacking because I was a bit too language-intuitive and consequently tested out of high school and college classes I never took, which didn't really do me any favors in the long run. I never took college-level English or literature classes. I'm not entirely aware of what aspects of literary analysis exist, much less what I should or want to be teaching. I need some hand-holding!

3 hours ago, Florimell said:

I couldn't find anything like that, so I am writing my own, but it is in its very earliest stages and focuses on classic short stories. I have a PhD in English literature and taught literary analysis for nearly a decade before leaving academia, so I could probably help if I knew more of what, exactly, you are hoping to do. What books do you have in mind? I am working though my short stories book with DS12, but until this point, we have just read a lot of different types of stories and poems and talked about them, focusing primarily on character (who is the main character? What does he/she want more than anything (gives rise to plot)? Why does he/she want it (gives rise to conflict)? Does he/she succeed (climax)? What are the consequences (resolution)? What role do other characters play? and so on). I think that finding themes (i.e. thematic statements, not motifs) is really the heart of literary analysis, and kids need some life behind them before they can really see and articulate fully the larger issues in a story that has enough depth for sustained literary analysis (not stories written for young readers where the messages are often overt and heavy handed).

 

That sounds amazing! I'm all for everything you just described. Do you have any suggestions for a book I could read to learn what and how to teach? 

I'm thinking middle-grade literature, probably? High-interest, possibly high-action, some with relatable characters, some with diverse characters? I'm not too aware of short stories, but I'm open to suggestions. On my list of novels to potentially read with them in in the next couple of years I have the following:
Mr. Popper's Penguins
The Wild Robot
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Wonder
One Crazy Summer
The Tale of Despereaux
Gulliver's Travels
The Green Glass Sea
Because of Winn-Dixie
The Bad Beginning
The Mysterious Benedict Society
One Crazy Summer 
The Penderwicks
James and the Giant Peach
The Dreamer
Holes
Harriet the Spy
Five Children and It
El Deafo
The Green Ember
The Neverending Story
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Brown Girl Dreaming
The Phantom Tollbooth
Out of My Mind
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH|
The Mighty Miss Malone

I haven't checked the reading levels on any of those, so I might have to adjust if it turns out some are going to be too challenging for DS 10 right now. 

3 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

The best lit analysis you can do at any age is understanding what the author is saying by understanding why they chose the words they did. Learning how to understand allusions can make them feel like detectives uncovering clues. Simple allegories can help them develop the skills of understanding multiple levels of meaning. (The Chronicles of Narnia books are great for Christian children to see how authors layer meaning.) 

I wouldn't focus on reading level as much as interest level and books that lead to sparking interest in why authors do what they do. (The Imaginarium Geographica books are full of allusions. Percy Jackson books could be read in parallel with mythology, etc.)

Yes, I want to do all that! I just don't know how. Help!?

I'm aiming for quality, interesting literature. My purpose in mentioning reading levels was just to give respondents an idea of what kind of literature might or might not fit our situation in case they had a curriculum with pre-selected works in mind. My main concerns are 1) will DS 8 find it interesting enough to tolerate reading it even though it's not about math, coding, or Minecraft? and 2) is it written at a level for which DS 10 would be able to read it independently or with just a little help? (I'm okay reading aloud to him, too, but I want him reading comfortably or at just a bit of a stretch most of the time. He has very low frustration tolerance and we're working on building back self esteem and interest in learning after 3.5 years of public school.)

[desertflower]

Sorry, I don't have any suggestions.  I am in the same boat.

I am reading the book whisperer to learn how to make my children love to read.

But I wanted to chime in and say if you have any child who is sensitive the book titled "the girl who drank the moon" may not be a good fit. Let's just say I am so glad I preread that one before reading aloud to them.

[EKS]

This may not fit the bill exactly, but the Michael Clay Thompson book Classics in the Classroom talks about (among other things) using classic literature (including nonfiction) as a means to explore complex ideas, enduring questions, and so forth.  It's a short and easy read.

[Cake and Pi]

25 minutes ago, square_25 said:

This is just my perspective... but I don't know that I would require kids to do literary analysis, per se. I also come from a math background and didn't take English classes in college (although I took them in high school.) However, I did take humanities classes in college and have always done well with the writing portion of the classes; I enjoy analytical writing. From my perspective, the purpose of this sort of analysis is to teach kids to think deeply; to engage with a variety of human experiences; to merge their analytical ideas with "fuzzier" subjects. And since these are demanding and deep requirements, I would probably work with my kids to find out what really interests them and then work on projects related to that, whether that turns out to be literary analysis or not. For example, I don't know that I'd do literary analysis with a kid who isn't particularly interested in fiction. Instead, I might pick some non-fiction book they love that explores deep ideas and analyze something about that. And I'd probably start by having interesting conversations about the books and brainstorming possible projects we could work on. 

That's just my two cents, though :-). I so far have two fiction lovers in this household, so I imagine at some point they'll want to analyze the literature they are reading. However, for me, the analysis is not optional, but what precisely they analyze is. 

Thanks for sharing! I completely agree; any subject can be turned into painful drudgery, and I'm glad to keep that in mind.

I'm actually kind of hoping that I can get DS 8 more interested in fiction if it's presented more systematically, I guess? He likes rules and symbols, so if we can search for hidden meanings, categorize characters and plot lines, and analyse a story like it was a math problem, maybe he'd be more open to focusing on it. He's very one-sided, and it's getting to the point where his lopsidedness is going to begin limiting his educational options pretty soon. For the last couple of years I've let DS 8 read, write, do, explore, and create math, math, math, a bit of science, and some more math. I don't mind continuing to cater to his interests, but I'd like to try to extend things a bit.

DS 10 loves fiction and I think would take naturally to literary analysis. I just want to combine them for time and sanity's sake. We spend a great deal of time traveling to and from doctor and therapy appointments, so most of our literature is audiobooks in the car that they read along with ("immersion reading," I believe it is called).

The problem is that I don't think I would naturally come up with the kinds of discussions everyone has described in this thread. I don't even know all the literary terms. I don't feel like I'm prepared to guide my children with my present knowledge. I just need a framework to work within and a series of steps to follow in or out of order. I need something like The Writing Revolution only for literature, you know? Actionable items with the how and why explained to me so I can apply it to what we're already doing to deepen and expand our discussions and thoughts about an otherwise neglected subject.

[Jackie]

Have you seen the Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus books from RFWP? They have sets of questions to go along with a selection of books, and the books in each grade range are selected primarily by interest level. They’re my go-to when I’m get stuck or in a rut with discussing books. Each set of questions is divided into six categories based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, ranging from simple comprehension questions up to prompts to recreate parts of the story for yourself. 

[lewelma]

Deconstructing Penguins was helpful to me when my kids were this age.  It is a short book that shows how a literary analysis conversation would play out with younger but smart kids. 

[8filltheheart]

Here is an example of a conversation I had with my 10 yod today when we were reading The Silver Chair.  The children and Puddleglum had just met the Prince in the underworld.  He was referred to as looking like Hamlet.

I asked her why she thought that was.  She wasn't familiar with Hamlet, but she immediately knew it was probably a reference to another work of literature.  So I pulled up a video of the scene where Hamlet's father is killed by his brother by poison but is thought to die by a snakebite.  It led to a wonderful conversation (led by her) about how that was like the Prince's mother being killed by the green snake who was really the Green Lady.  And how Adam and Eve were prey to the serpent in the garden, and the Prince was the prey of the Green Lady.

It doesn't take much.  It just takes being aware and asking questions.  You don't have to even know the answers.  Searching for the answers is half of the fun!

[Noreen Claire]

On 2/23/2020 at 12:37 PM, desertflower said:

But I wanted to chime in and say if you have any child who is sensitive the book titled "the girl who drank the moon" may not be a good fit. Let's just say I am so glad I preread that one before reading aloud to them.

Oh, this is one of my favorite books, and I give it as a gift as often as I can. Thank you for saying this, as I never would have thought about it being an issue for sensitive children. Will have to keep that in mind...

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Just skimmed the comments, so I apologize if this is redundant. 

Deconstructing Penguins is a great book. I need to revisit it.

I wanted to chime in that Teaching the Classics by Adam Andrews at Center for Lit uses picture books to teach literature analysis. The structure of the story is more apparent in a short book. 

I subscribe to the "less is more" philosophy of literature analysis - teaching the concepts at 11 or 12ish, but not discussing it in every book. I feel like it has the potential to kill the love of reading good literature.

[Frances]

On 2/23/2020 at 1:30 PM, square_25 said:

This is just my perspective... but I don't know that I would require kids to do literary analysis, per se. I also come from a math background and didn't take English classes in college (although I took them in high school.) However, I did take humanities classes in college and have always done well with the writing portion of the classes; I enjoy analytical writing. From my perspective, the purpose of this sort of analysis is to teach kids to think deeply; to engage with a variety of human experiences; to merge their analytical ideas with "fuzzier" subjects. And since these are demanding and deep requirements, I would probably work with my kids to find out what really interests them and then work on projects related to that, whether that turns out to be literary analysis or not. For example, I don't know that I'd do literary analysis with a kid who isn't particularly interested in fiction. Instead, I might pick some non-fiction book they love that explores deep ideas and analyze something about that. And I'd probably start by having interesting conversations about the books and brainstorming possible projects we could work on. 

That's just my two cents, though :-). I so far have two fiction lovers in this household, so I imagine at some point they'll want to analyze the literature they are reading. However, for me, the analysis is not optional, but what precisely they analyze is. 

I agree and I love to read, both fiction and non-fiction, but don’t enjoy literary analysis, especially the discussion aspect of it, even though I aced all of my college English classes and was encouraged to major in English by my profs. At the time, it was just about the least appealing major possible to me. I would much, much rather discuss and analyze non-fiction texts, even though most of my reading for pleasure is fiction. On the other hand, my sister is also an avid reader and she majored in English.