Critical: Also known as section II of Part A – Diploma

Exam
Examples: A critical essay may analyze . . .
* how Shakespeare presents the character, Othello, in
his play, Othello;
* the strengths and weaknesses of the movie, Children
of a Lesser God;
* the use of color in Monet's painting, Sunflowers.
A critical essay analyzes the strengths, weaknesses and
methods of someone else's work. Generally these essays
begin with a brief overview of the main points of the text,
movie, or piece of art, followed by an analysis of the work's
meaning. It should then discuss how well the author/creator
accomplishes his/her goals and makes his/her points. A
critical essay can be written about another essay, story,
book, poem, movie, or work of art.
Writing the Critical-analytic Essay
The Analytic Essay is an interpretive exercise in which you display your close
reading skills by analyzing a work, novel, play poem, etc. This essay should be
clearly focused on matters of craft, technique, and style. It should also touch on
how this writer fits into contemporary trends, what previous authors may have
influenced his or her, etc.

Aim: To enable secondary students to write a comprehensive analytical essay

on Lord of the Flies; to practice the levels of mastery needed for this task; to
achieve accuracy and speed in the procedural knowledge needed to complete
this task.

Declarative knowledge presumed: A reading of this novel.

Sample target question: "Novels are written for various reasons, as social
commentary, as personal reminiscences, for entertainment, or for
celebration of character or event, etc. Write an analytical essay on Lord of
the Flies focusing on one element of it:

• theme,
• character
• plot
• setting or
• style.

Teacher Structured:

Lesson 1: (Dimension 1: Attitudes and perceptions p. 18)

Why learn this? Analytic essays occur across the curriculum, in drama, religion,
multi-strand science, history, geography, legal studies, film studies, English,
QCS, university.

Understanding the task : analytic = what it's all about, how the author tackles
his task; identifying its point of view along the range of possible views;
identifying the elements of the work; appraising key concepts, themes, or
characters.

Analysis is not a book review, appreciation (matters of taste, usefulness), or

plot summary.
Read samples, model analytic essays e.g., "Good novels do more than tell a
story" AP Note structure, synonyms: exemplifies, illustrates, projects, brought forth,
demonstrates,

Do a PLAN and a QAR post reading reflection on the text.

Lesson 2: Paragraph structure: QESCL method: (Outline, explain, support,

conclude, link); signpost sentences and linking sentences.

Lesson 3: How to brainstorm ideas; picking pertinent points (see Abstracting

below); examples and oral and writing exercises. Graphic organiser p. 253. Use
a Frayer model.

Lesson 4: How to use quotations and examples: samples and writing exercises.
Using a comparison matrix p. 121. Advice for this task web search See Links
below.

Lesson 5: Post-reading prewriting orientation: use a RAFT model. Types of

questions and types of plans; samples and writing exercises (144)

Lesson 6: Scholarly tone, language and metaphors; creating interest.

More Student Structured:

Lesson 7: Putting it together: From notes to plan; arranging/ recording best

quotations and examples; From incidents to character profile - use Inductive
reasoning (Student Handbook 21, DLTeacher's Manual 142.)

Lesson 8: From plan to first draft.

Lesson 9: Revising a draft; editing; critically examine the text; text and
question aligned?.

Lesson 10: Completing and submission of final copy. Attach criteria sheet.

Resources: Some relevant links

*** Best site for this task - gives specific strategies

Advice for a Shakespeare essay
Good bullet point advice
Advises constant redrafting
Succinct advice in 6 points
Who is my audience?
Analyzing a text
Vince Rocchio's advice
plan and sample
sample: The Jurassic Symphony
NIU points: persona, tone

Abstracting (Dimensions of Learning Teacher's Manual p. 130)

To be proficient and confident dealing with unfamiliar information; making sense of

information; relating data to general patterns, generating metaphors and analogies. "to
make connections across disciplines" to "find patterns that have meaning."

Process(from literal to abstract)

• find the core elements - identify the literal information: Find six key sentences.
• replace key words
• find alternatives for them
• compose another version of the material

Resource: Marzano R. J. et al. Dimensions of Learning Teacher's Manual 2nd edition.

Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1997.
Page composed and maintained by G.B. Smith Brisbane Australia April 2002.
How to develop and write an analytic
essay
Argument: Writing an analytic essay requires that you make some sort of argument.
The core of this argument is called a thesis. It is your claim, succinctly stated in a single
sentence. What do budding literary critics such as yourselves argue about? You make a
pervasive, persistent case that a certain thing is true about a piece of literature. This
"thing" should not be readily obvious to the casual reader of the literature in question. It
is what you draw out of the book or essay, how you interpret it. It is a claim that must be
supported by specific evidence from the text.

Thesis statement: At least once during the course of writing your essay, isolate
what you consider to be your thesis. Is your proposition both arguable and reasonable? If
it is obvious (i.e. Mary Rowlandson used the Bible for comfort during her captivity) you
don’t have an argument. Argument requires analysis (i.e. taking things apart and
explaining them). One test that may help is asking yourself what the opposite "side" of
your argument would be. A good, complicated thesis (which was proposed by one of your
classmates) is that "Although Mary Rowlandson says she often used the Bible as a source
of comfort during her captivity, a closer reading of her narrative suggests her faith may
have been more troubled by her experience than she lets on." One useful structure for
writing thesis statements is the "although" form used above: "Although x seems to be true
about this piece of literature, y is in fact more true (or makes our thinking about x more
complex)." In this form you present both sides of your argument at once and show which
side you’re on. Your job in the paper is to convince your reader to join you. Another way
to write an effective thesis statement is to use the form "If we look closely at x (e.g. how
Bradford defines freedom) we discover y (that ).

In order to find something to argue:

Look for images or metaphors that the author uses consistently. What other sort of pattern
can you identify in the text? How do you interpret this pattern so that your reader will
understand the book, essay, poem, speech, etc. better?

What philosophical, moral, ethical, etc. ideas is the author advocating or opposing? What
are the consequences of accepting the author's argument?

Explain how the work functions as a piece of rhetoric--how does the author attempt to
convince his or her reader of something? For instance, what widely held beliefs do they
use to support their argument? How do they appeal to emotions, logic…

Re-examine something that the text or most readers take for granted (that Thoreau’s book
Walden represents his attempt to escape from society). Question this major premise and
see where it takes you
Ask yourself if an author’s literary argument is inconsistent with itself or is in some way
philosophically "dangerous," inadequate, unethical, or misleading.

Examine how characters are presented in a story. How do they help the main character to
develop? Which characters are trustworthy? Which are not? Why are they presented this
way?

What counts as evidence:

Structure: How the parts of the book or essay follow one another; how the parts are
assembled to make a whole? Why does the author start where they start, end where they
end? What is the logical progression of thought? How might that progression be intended
to affect the reader What effect might this progression of ideas have on a generic reader
or on a reader from the time period in which the work was written? Does the piece move
from the general to the specific or vice versa?

If you could divide the book/essay into sections, units of meaning, what would those
sections be? How are they related to each other? Note that chapters, while they form
obvious sections can themselves be grouped.

Referring to the text: In writing analytic papers that address any kind of literature, it is
necessary to refer to the text (the specific words on the page of the book) in order to
support your argument. This means that you must quote and interpret passages that
demonstrate or support your argument. Quotation is usually stronger than paraphrase.
Remember also that your purpose in writing an essay is not merely to paraphrase or
summarize (repeat) what the author has said, but to make an argument about how the
make their point, or how they have said what they have said.

Language: includes the way an author phrases his or her sentences, the key metaphors
used (it’s up to you to explain how these metaphors are used, why these metaphors are
appropriate, effective, ineffective, or ambiguous). Is the way a sentence is phrased
particularly revealing of the author’s meaning?

Practical Essay-writing Hints:

Please title your paper and make the title apt and enticing--I LOVE a good title. It puts
me in a good mood before I start reading.

Be clear about whether you’re writing about a book, an essay (non-fiction, short prose), a
story (short fiction) a poem, a novel (book-length fiction), an autobiography, a narrative
(as in Captivity Narratives) etc. Walden is a book comprised of chapters. Each of these
chapters could also be called an essay. Within these essays, Thoreau sometimes tells
stories. The book itself is not a story, but closer to a narrative, which is non-fiction.

Always go through at least two drafts of you paper. Let your paper sit, preferably for 24
hours between drafts sometime during the process of your writing.
Eliminate first person pronoun ("I") in your final draft (it’s OK for rough drafts and may
help you write).

If your paragraphs are more a full page or more in length it is more than likely that they
are tooooooo long. Probably you have too many ideas "in the air" at once. Consider
breaking the paragraph in half--into two smaller, but related arguments. Your reader
needs a break, needs more structure in order to be able to follow your meaning.

If several of your paragraphs are exceedingly short (4-5 lines), it is likely that you are not
developing your ideas thoroughly enough--that you are writing notes rather than analysis.
Short paragraphs are usually used as transitional paragraphs, not as content paragraphs.
(Short paragraphs can be used in the rhetorical devise of reversal where you lead your
reader down a certain path (to show them one side of the argument, the one you are going
to oppose) and then turn away from that argument to state the true argument of your
paper.)

Employ quotation often. One quotation per argumentative paragraph is usually necessary.
Depending upon the length and complexity of the passage or topic you're dealing with,
more quotations may be useful to prevent you from getting too far away from the text.
Your quotations combined with your interpretations are your proof. Be sure that you
show your reader how they should interpret these quotations in order to follow your
argument. (Almost every quotation should be followed by an interpretation, a deeper
reading of what is being said and how its being said. This interpretation demonstrates
how the quotation supports the claim you're making about it). Pay attention to metaphor,
phrasing, tone, alliteration, etc. How is the author saying what they are saying--what does
that teach us about the text?

Remember to write directive (sometimes called "topic") sentences for your paragraphs.
The first sentence of any paragraph should give your reader an idea of what the paragraph
is going to say and how the paragraph will connect to the larger argument. It should have
more to do with what you have to say about the materials than what the author him or
herself has said.

Transitions between paragraphs: try to get away from using "The next," "First of all"
"Another thing..." to connect your paragraphs. This is the "list" method of structuring a
paper--not an integrated, logical approach. A really strong transition makes the logical
connection between paragraphs or sections of a paper and gives the reader a sense that
you’re building an argument. To make sure you are making a well-connected argument,
ask yourself how the last sentence of each paragraph and the first sentence of the next are
connected. Each of the sentences within your paragraphs should be related somehow
(follow from, refer to, etc.) the one that precedes it, and the one which follows it. This
will help the reader follow the flow of your ideas. The order of your paragraphs should
reveal a developing argument.

On the most basic level, you should be able to consciously justify the presence and
placement of every word in every sentence, every sentence in every paragraph, every
paragraph in every essay. To repeat: in revising your papers after the first draft (which is
always, inevitably to some degree confused because you are involved in the process of
working your ideas out), you should be highly conscious of what you are doing and why
you are doing it.

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