I'm not sure which of the "E" headings this fits under -- help welcomed! A few years ago, my students and I had read and discussed the book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass. I wanted my students to learn how to do literary analysis citing examples from the text, something with which they had absolutely no prior experience. So I created a Google Doc which I then shared with the 8 students in this Comparative Literature group, and we all sat around a table together with this blank doc opened. I began by asking the students to think about how they would describe the main character, Jeremy. After giving them a minute or two of think time, I invited them to brainstorm qualities characteristic of Jeremy and to add them to the Google Doc as they thought of them, even if someone else had already added something similar. Students dove right in! After a minute or two, we paused to consolidate our list, putting similar qualities together or eliminating duplicates. Next, I explained to my students that when writing literary analysis, it is important to cite examples from the original text. Before I could even finish giving the directions, students were already combing through the book looking for examples of character dialogue, behavior, or author description to support their claims of the qualities characteristic of Jeremy, adding page numbers next to the qualities on our shared Google Doc that each text example supported. We ultimately collaborated to write the paragraphs of our essay together, often all together at first followed by students working in pairs to write their own paragraphs. Once we had three different paragraphs, each describing a different quality characteristic of Jeremy complete with examples cited from the text, we worked together to write both an introductory and concluding paragraph, each pair of students ultimately crafting their own versions of these. Following this process, each student selected a different character to analyze, using the same process to brainstorm and write their own, individual character analysis essays. Although this entire process spanned several weeks, it was well worth the investment of time as students really came away from this experience with a deep understanding of how to write this type of essay, how to cite examples from the text, and confidence in their ability to perform these tasks independently.
Cheryl Blau
