Writing Homework Help

Take the time to carefully assess your literary choice before writing. Remember that the goal of a solid analysis is to display a focused interpretation of a literary work in order to deepen your audience’s knowledge. The thesis should focus on a specific point of analysis and provide an arguable opinion.  The body of your paper should demonstrate a superior understanding of specific textual evidence. Provide detailed analysis to avoid general summary and conclude by speaking to the overall importance of the work as part of the cannon of LA fiction.

Avoid summary and enhance your analysis by:

• Looking at specific word choice
• Weighing the evidence and examples provided
• Assessing figurative language
• Observing the choices of purpose and audience
• Uncovering denotative, associative meanings
• Connecting your findings to cultural and historical contexts

Choose from any of the stories we have evaluated in the fiction section, and develop your analysis in a full length essay FINAL DRAFT that will include ONE SECONDARY SOURCE and should be a minimum of four pages.

The structure:

1. Introduction–Name author and title and provide a concise overview. After some background regarding your chosen element of fiction, state the main point or thesis of your essay.Your thesis should answer a question about how essential your element of fiction is and how it relates to a big theme in the work. For instance, you might answer the question: What main point was the author trying to make about his/her theme as it relates to the setting, or how was the author trying explore his/her theme through the arc of the characters?

2. Body

a) Evaluate your first point’s connection to your thesis, support it with quotations from the text, and develop them with your own explanations.

b) Evaluate your second point’s connection to your thesis, support it with quotations from the text, and develop them with your own explanations.

c) Evaluate your third point’s connection to your thesis, support it with quotations from the text, and develop them with your own explanations.

(Note: Be careful that you don’t just re-tell the story without giving your interpretations.  A better analysis would focus on your interpretation, not on summarizing the story.)

3. Conclusion:  Briefly summarize your main points and connect them to your thesis.  Explain what the reader might learn about human nature, society, civilization or the complexity of human experience through reading the work