Writing a Literary essay

1. Writing a Literary essay The Introductory and Body Paragraphs

2. INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH • Captures the reader’s interest with the opening sentence or the HOOK. • Gives the reader the necessary knowledge or BACKGROUND INFORMATION (author’s biography and writing/publishing history of the text) to understand the context of the literary essay . • States the main idea of the essay and the elements that will be the subject of the body paragraphs in the THESIS STATEMENT.

3. THE HOOK Think about someone reading your essay. What would capture the reader’s interest immediately? • Interesting statistic • Thought-provoking quotation • Startling fact • Relevant story or anecdote • Powerful declarative sentence

4. THE HOOK Example: Powerful Declarative Sentence With his short story “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner invented a new literary genre: Southern Gothic.

5. BACKGROUND INFORMATION • Biographical information about the author. • Writing or publishing history of the text. • Summary of the text. • Other relevant information to help the reader understand what you are writing about. Always assume that your reader knows nothing about the text you are wiring about.

6. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Example: Faulkner was born and spent most of his life in the Oxford, Mississippi: a town that is forever marked by the sad histories of slavery and the Civil War. This sadness helps create the eerie nostalgia that characterizes the Southern Gothic genre. “A Rose for Emily,” which he wrote in 1930, was Faulkner’s first short story to be published in a national magazine.

7. THESIS STATEMENT Example: In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner uses the literary elements of setting and characterization to create a dark tale of grotesque characters trapped between the past and the present.

8. BODY PARAGRAPH • The first body paragraph will be about the first element listed in the thesis statement. • The TOPIC SENTENCE is the first sentence in the body paragraph and should specifically explain what the paragraph will be about. Use an explaining word or phrase such as because or in order to. • The “meat” of the body paragraph should be SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FROM THE TEXT that proves the point you are making in your topic sentence. • The last sentence in the paragraph is the CONCLUDING SENTENCE that emphasizes the main idea from the topic sentence and provides a transition to the next body paragraph.

9. BODY PARAGRAPH Example: Topic Sentence Early in the story, Faulkner uses the setting of Jefferson, Mississippi, to exemplify the decay that was present in the Post-Civil War South.

10. Body paragraph Example: Supporting Evidence from the Text In describing the main character’s house: “It smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell,” Faulkner is using the decayed state of the house as a metaphor for the South as a whole.

11. Body paragraph Example: Concluding Sentence The author’s dark, decaying description of the setting creates a horror story-like feeling for the reader; however, the true monsters of this story are the characters themselves.