I've done as many as eighty drafts of one poem.
I've found students shocked to learn
that it can take me three years
to finish one poem.

Carolyn Forché

Strategic readers of literature are active detectives. Instead of reading to relax or fall asleep, they read to waken their minds and activate their imaginations. If they know they're going to discuss a work in class or write a composition about a work, they read with pen or pencil in hand. They observe details, pick up clues, look for patterns, note oddities, draw inferences, make conclusions, expect the so-what to come near the end . . . they detect.

• a male protagonist
• a child protagonist or an adult looking back at childhood
• a rural North Carolina setting
• the protagonist (or narrator) has an insight about himself (insignificance? personal growth?)
• the weight of the past; the past as a "ghost"
• themes of loss, death, grief
• focus on family, especially the relationship between parents and child
• vivid imagery (an image is an appeal to one of the five senses through language)
• vivid figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification)
• plain language and simple diction (or vocabulary) to suggest complex ideas
• sweet tone without falling over into nostalgia and sentimentality
• storytelling within the story and the importance of stories in connecting us to past and future; we all live in our own stories that we make up
• the collision of two ways of life resulting in friction
• understatement; saying things without saying them completely

Remember that when you write about literature, you are trying to explain and support your idea about a work of literature for someone who has read that same work. You are not writing to identify observations (remarks about the work of literature that any reader would notice and about which there would be no disagreement). Instead, you are writing about your interpretation (or judgment) of some aspect of the literature. That interpretation is based upon your observations. Compose like a detective. Make observations, look for patterns, and make inferences (interpretations) as to their significance. Now you have something to write about.

Once you feel confident that you have an idea based on a specific aspect of the text, then draft. Write as quickly as you can and say everything you can think of. At this point, don't worry about organization and structure. Some writers, like Dr. Hood, don't even worry about their sentences and spelling. Focus on ideas and evidence and speed. Why? Writers know that the very act of writing itself generates new ideas. Once you've got it all out there, then you can do something with it. Now you should think about content and form.

Exemplar. This student-composed example (also published along with two other compositions here) offers a superior solution to the problems posed by the writing assignment.

Tony Earley’s Voice Through Metaphors
This composition is especially effective because it has a narrow focus (metaphor reveals character), offers specific examples that are related (quotations from one scene), explains the metaphors in those examples (by specifically addressing what's implied about Jim and Cissy through language), and provides a smooth ride from beginning to end.

In an interview with Hattie Fletcher, Tony Earley said, "I can’t write any piece, fiction or nonfiction, until I come up with a metaphor" (5). Not only do his metaphors help to create better images in the reader’s mind about scenes, but also about characters. In Jim the Boy are great examples that show how Tony Earley uses metaphors. (This paragraph could be much more focused. Look at the last sentence. Do you know what examples will be discussed? Which characters will be revealed by which metaphors?)

On only the second page of the novel, Jim walks into the kitchen where his mother is cooking. When she acknowledges Jim, his "heart r[i]se[s] up briefly, like a scrap of paper on a breath of wind, and then quickly settle[s] back to the ground" (8). This metaphor tells us something about Jim. (To this point, the writer offers observations.) It tells us that first of all there is not much to Jim’s heart, which is described as only a "scrap of paper" picked up by only a "breath of wind." It does not take a gust of wind to raise his heart, but a mere "breath" of wind. This metaphor tells us that Jim’s faint heart is easily moved, or he is easily affected. The fact that Jim’s heart "settle[s] quickly back to the ground" shows us that Jim’s feelings change often and quickly. His heart is only raised for a quick moment, and not any longer. (The two preceding sentences offer interpretations.)

In the sentence followed by the sentence above, Tony Earley says that Jim’s "love for his mother [is] tethered by a sympathy Jim fe[e]l[s] knotted in the dark of his stomach" (8). This shows us that the love that Jim has for his mother is restricted by this sympathy that Jim feels for his mother that is tied up deep inside of him. (The preceding sentence is a paraphrase of the quotation.) This sympathy that Jim can not seem to untie, or figure out, is what is keeping him from loving his mother in a more open way. He feels so sorry for her because of the death of Jim’s father that he seems to feel more sympathy for his mother, instead of love. (The preceding two sentences are interpretations.) At the end of this same passage when Jim’s mother leans over to kiss him, what he senses is the smell of her cheeks being "as sweet and sad at once as the smell of freshly turned earth in the churchyard" (8). What this short statement shows us is how in the little things Jim’s mother does, such as a quick kiss, Jim can sense her grief, and he sympathizes for her. (The preceding sentence is an interpretation.) Tony Earley describes this grief as being "pulled behind her [Jim’s mother] like a plow" (8).

The metaphors that Tony Earley uses help the reader understand what he is visualizing. Not only do they illustrate an image in the reader’s mind when he describes things such as elements of nature, but they also help the reader understand characters like Jim and his mother better, by comparing aspects of these characters to things that the reader can understand and visualize. His use of metaphors is one aspect of his voice as a writer that anyone would notice when reading one of his works. (This conclusion repeats the content of the essay and is, thus, almost unnecessary. Better yet would be a paragraph that moves to a place other than where the essay began. Since a composition is a journey, the reader wants to go somewhere new instead of beginning and ending in the same place.)

• make sure you correctly identify titles and authors (an author must have authority!)
• state the title of the work under discussion and the author's name
• connect each sentence to the one before it and the one after it
• write in paragraphs
• focus on your idea, not a summary of the work discussed
• make sure the first paragraph introduces your interpretive idea and gives the reader an idea of where you'll take him or her
• check your GUM
• define your terms
• use parenthetical citations to show where quotations come from
• write in complete sentences
• don't tell the reader what's obvious (by defining a literary term we all know, for instance)
• take time to develop each idea fully (drive slowly and cautiously)

For further advice about writing about literature, see The Thirteen Commandments of Writing about Literature by following this link.

For some help with coming up with your idea (or interpretation or thesis), follow this link to a page within the Rutgers University web.

What kind of driver will you be?

For example, study what this writer has done: "However, when he goes from his room into the kitchen, he sees his mother wearing her mother’s 'long clothes' (8), which tells him that the loss of her late husband is hitting her extra hard that day." The writer has used only the image ("long clothes") that supports his or her inference about Jim's mood.

Study what this writer has done: "The fact that Jim’s heart 'settle[s] quickly back to the ground' (8) shows us that Jim’s feelings change often and quickly. His heart is only raised for a quick moment, and not any longer." Again, the writer uses the quotation to support an idea s/he infers about Jim's feelings. (The brackets, by the way, signal the insertion of a letter not found in the original text.)

Now study what this writer has done: "In 'My Father’s Heart,' Jim’s mother really wants Jim to become something and do something great with his life. 'My mother lay in her bed in Uncle Zeno’s house, freshly bathed and in a clean gown, already convinced that because her husband died, the child she carried was destined to live a life that mattered' (192-193). " This writer has not used a quotation to support an idea. Indeed, a reader is likely to wonder why the writer's idea stops dead and a quotation appears. The reader is left to ask, What part of this quotation is important? Why? What's the point? Once the reader loses concentration on the developing idea, the composition becomes a kidnapping instead of a pleasant journey. This writer might have written: "In 'My Father's Heart,' Jim's mother really wants Jim to 'live a life that matter[s]' (192-3)." Which version is easier to read? Which version focuses on the essay writer's idea?

9/13/06

A number of folks have suggested that the first paragraph is shaped like a funnel or inverted triangle, with content becoming more specific from beginning to end. In addition to naming the work of literature and the author, the opening sentence orients the reader to the major concern of the essay. The last sentence points the reader to your thesis or idea, specifically leading into the body of your discussion and suggesting the organization of comments in that body.

Follow this link for some excellent safe driving advice by David Roberts of The University of Richmond.

Some folks who teach students to write essays tell them something like this: say what you're going to say; say it; then repeat what you said you were going to say. Don't insult your reader through offering needless repetition! Give your reader something to think about and treat him or her to a pleasant and rewarding journey.

Instead of repeating the opening paragraph(s), an effective conclusion offers the reader the reward of a destination. Suggest the larger implications of your topic beyond the single work of literature, or connect the thesis to your own life, or help the reader understand why your idea matters, or . . . . In other words, the conclusion is the last thing your reader reads: make it worth his or her time and give him or her something rich to consider.

Murphy's Law holds that if it can wrong, it will go wrong. The law is especially true when you're working toward meeting a deadline. Just this past weekend, two students met this law head-on, with unpleasant results. Their flash drives crashed just as they tried to print their essays due on Monday. Unfortunately, neither had printed his work . . .

. . . which brings us to Teresa's Law: because Murphy's Law holds true, you must save to more than one device and you must print often. 

If you follow Teresa's Law, you'll be safe even if Murphy's Law takes effect. Be warned!

1. Make sure that you're fulfilling the expectations of the genre. An essay about a work of literature argues the writer's idea about some focused aspect of a work of literature for a reader who is also familiar with that work of literature. Thus, there is no need for extensive summary and paraphrase. Indeed, the essay must explain and argue the writer's idea. Firthermore, the genre requires certain conventions, which in English II are referred to as The Thirteen Commandments. Follow them!
2. Focus on content. Is there enough? Is there too much? Are quotations used to make your ideas convincing? Is the content (evidence, examples, explanations) logical? Relevant? Accurate? Is the idea clearly in focus?
3. Focus on organization. Is there a journey to a destination from beginning to end? Is the journey smooth or bumpy? Does the introductory paragraph provide an invitation and a map? Does the body develop ideas? Does the conclusion offer a destination that grows out of but does not repeat what has come before? Does each sentence connect to the two around it? Does each paragraph connect with the two around it?

Revision is not about fixing mistakes. It is about re-seeing your work through a reader's eyes.

What's an image? The use of language to recreate a sensory experience. The words make a reader up something he or she can see (visual image), hear (auditory image), smell (olfactory images), taste (gustatory image), or feel (tactile image). Images create the sense that what we're reading is palpable; they put us in the dream-state of reading we call belief or verisimilitude. Who hasn't read a Harry Potter book, for instance, and hasn't felt that he or she was a student at Hogwarts?

Images do more than recreate sensory experiences, however. Some suggest emotions and ideas as well. Because a fiction writer can use any words he or she chooses to create any kind of world he or she chooses, the particular words in a work are selected deliberately, not just randomly. A detecting reader notices those images and, as always, wonders Why?

Look, for instance, at this small bit of text from Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street: "But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It's small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Our back is a small garage for the car we don't own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side." The repeated references to small and the three references to holding the breath (or breathing) combine to give us an idea of suffocation for those inside the house. The women are confined and imprisoned; they can't breathe, in the sense that they have no freedom. The redness might suggest anger or breathlessness or passion. The tight steps are difficult to climb, making ingress and egress trying. What Esperanza had longed for -- the American dream of a house with a big yard all their own -- is a nightmare of confinement and disappointment.

Every images doesn't suggest more than it describes, but many do, and learning to look for patterns of images (called imagery) will help you think about what a work means.

Writer and teacher Barry Lane, in his book After the End: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision, describes the process of writing through a vivid metaphor. He has written, "All writing begins in the sea of experience, with what we know. Our memories swim with disconnected but vivid sights and sounds and smells. When we write, we begin to climb the mountain and see the patterns beneath the water; we begin to make sense of our lives and revise what we write. But to make these abstract thoughts come to life, we need to return to the sea to gather all the details. As writers, we continually move back and forth between the sea and the mountain" (41).

The danger for the writer is that he or she might get stuck at the top of mountain or at the bottom of the sea. As Lane explains, "A writer bogged down in the sea fills pages with meaningless detail" (42), with the result that a reader is left to wonder yes . . . well . . . and . . . so . . . ? "[C]limbing the mountain is not without its own hazards. You could get stuck up there in the clouds of general and Godlike truth, writing thoughts" without details (43), an equally frustrating experience for the reader. Good writers move back and forth between the mountain and sea.

The Mountain of Perception is characterized by abstractions and ideas, whereas the Sea of Experience is characterized by sensory images and things.

Fiction and memoir reside mostly in the sea of experience. Through specific characters (or persons), settings, actions (arranged in a structure called "plot"), conflicts, dialogue, scenes, points of view, and language (including images), works of fiction suggest themes (or ideas residing atop the mountain of perception).

Essays tend to begin with ideas (the mountain of perception) and then demonstrate the value or importance or truth of those ideas through examples, data, statistics, quotations, interviews, and the like (the sea of experience).

Snapshots and Thoughtshots
Practically, one way that writers move between the mountain and the sea is through snapshots and thoughtshots. Imagine that the writer holds a camera that lets readers see (touch, taste, hear, or smell) concrete moments and that also allows readers to access feelings and thoughts. When the camera shows us something concrete, the writer has used a snapshot. When the camera reveals thoughts or feelings or ideas, the writer has used a thoughtshot.

These short passages from Tony Earley's Jim the Boy and Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street demonstrate the professional use of snapshots and thoughtshots:

from Jim the Boy
"Uncle Al scooped him up and sat him on his shoulder. [snapshot] Wherever he looked people were smiling up at him and clapping. [snapshot] He felt like the king of the world. [thoughtshot] He patted his pocket [snapshot] to make sure that his dollar was still there [thoughtshot]" (114).

"As Jim wheeled in the seat and watched the two convicts, and the sleepy-looking guard who watched over them, grow smaller in the rear glass [snapshot], he felt deliciously frightened [thoughtshot]" (116).

from The House on Mango Street
"I had to look where she pointed -- the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows [snapshot] so we wouldn't fall out. [thoughtshot] You live there? [snapshot] The way she said it made me feel like nothing [thoughtshot]" (5).

"My Papa, his thick hands and thick shoes, [snapshot] who wakes up tired in the dark [thoughtshot], who combs his hair with water, drinks his coffee [snapshot], and is gone before we wake, is today sitting on my bed. [snapshot]

"And I think if my own Papa died what would I do. [thoughtshot] I hold my Papa in my arms. I hold and hold and hold him [snapshot]" (57).

More Advice from Barry Lane
As Barry Lane has pointed out, a writer can structure time as he or she needs to for a given piece. A vignette, for example, explodes a moment by focusing on sensory details to bring that single moment into sharp focus. Think of instant replay: you can watch the football play in extreme slow motion. You can do the same thing in your writing. (Beware: explode only a really important moment!) Sometimes, you'll need to do the opposite and skip a chunk of time (shrink a century). Writers do this all the time with such expressions as "an hour later" or "before dinner." Not every moment in a narrative is important, and readers grow impatient with needless slowing-down of time.

Barry Lane also says that when he writes, he digs for the potato, that is, the heartbeat (or center) of the writing. You might think of this as the "so-what" that every reader expects and deserves. Make sure your writing has a firm heartbeat!

To read more of Barry Lane's advice, follow this link.

Writing = discovering ideas + developing content + inventing purpose + imagining readers + crafting genre + seeking feedback + editing language + prooreading + publishing 
To get started on your vignettes, you might find it useful to read some advice and examples on this website. To learn more about writing as a process of drafting, conferring, revising, editing, and proofreading, follow this link. From that page, you can also read about Dr. Hood's writing process as she worked on a personal essay, some drafts of which appear here along with the final version. Finally, you might want to read some vignettes composed by previous sophomores by going to the assignment page and then following the links at the bottom of the page.

The essay, too, has conventions. Two of those -- having to do purpose and structure -- are especially important for your work on the personal essay assignment.

ESSAY PURPOSE: The essay is a literary form in which the writer's mind speaks directly to the reader's mind. The essayist explores an idea (about an abstract notion like "honor," about a phenomenon in the world like "black holes," about an event or place or decision in her or her own life, about . . . ), mining it for meaning (significance and relevance beyond the personal). The essayist shapes that idea for his or her reader in attempt to entice the reader to take a mind journey with the writer. Some essays argue ideas, like The Declaration of Independence. Other essays pose essential questions and offer possible answers, like a number of philosophical/religious/ethical essays. Still others explore the personal lives of writers, seeking the sources of their values and behaviors and the like. In all cases, the essayist must, as Bruce Springsteen said of the writer, make the reader care about his or her obsessions. The idea of an essay is like the heartbeat -- the sign of life-blood carrying oxygen to every living part. As a writer, you must first use words to find your heartbeat (your idea); then you must shape those words to present that idea to your reader.

STRUCTURE: Like other literary forms, the essay can take many shapes. Some are written as letters or diary entries. Others are formal arguments, as clean and logical as geometric proofs. Still others narrate stories. Regardless of the method of organization, all essays have this structural similarity: the beginning and the ending echo one another. Opposed to what you might have previously learned (about the false form called the "five paragraph essay," for instance), the end does not repeat the beginning. If it did, the composition would not have taken the reader on a journey. Instead, the ending somehow echoes the beginning. Some essays, indeed, are framed: that is, the beginning and ending together act as a kind of picture frame holding the body together. If, for instance, I begin an essay with a vignette about my trying to write, include a body of some kind about writing and its personal purpose, and the return to that opening scene at the end, then the essay has been framed. This is one technique that previous students have found helpful when composing their "Things I Carry" essays.

Read the exemplar essays again and look for their heartbeats. Notice their organizational methods. How do beginnings and endings echo one another?

Once a reader has found patterns, then he or she continues the read the text looking for more instances.