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The purpose of this portion of the author study is to:
Expose you to how literary criticism can deepen your understanding of works
Reinforce your researching skills
Refine your summarizing skills
Literary criticism is the comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or evaluation of works of literature. Literary criticism is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context. It usually includes discussion of the work’s content and integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research. Literary criticism may have a positive or a negative bias and may be a study of an individual piece of literature or an author’s body of work.
Although criticism may include some of the following elements in order to support an idea, literary criticism is NOT a plot summary, a biography of the author, or simply finding fault with the literature.
Researching, reading, and writing works of literary criticism will help you to make better sense of the work, form judgments about literature, study ideas from different points of view, and determine on an individual level whether a literary work is worth reading.
Step 1: RESEARCH
Find at least 2 Literary Criticisms focused on works by your author. They can be on works that you have read, but do not have to be. Make sure the purpose of the critics’ writing is analyzing, not criticizing. Look at the reference section of Wikipedia, Semantic Scholar, Google Scholar, https://literariness.org/ , and the Library’s Gale Literature Resource Center database for help with sources. This is an appropriate opportunity to use AI; you can ask it for help finding you sources.
When you are selecting which sources to use, you can use Enduring Understandings as topics for the articles or for the key points to help you on that section of your website. You can quote the critics later.
CHARACTER: Characters in literature allow readers to study and explore a range of values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, and cultural norms represented by those characters.
SETTING:Setting and the details associated with it not only depict a time and place, but also convey values associated with that setting.
STRUCTURE: The arrangement of the parts and sections of a text, the relationship of the parts to each other, and the sequence in which the text reveals information are all structural choices made by a writer that contribute to the reader’s interpretation of a text.
SPEAKER: A narrator’s or speaker’s perspective controls the details and emphases that affect how readers experience and interpret a text.
Step 2: NOTE TAKING
Identify 1 to 2 key points per article. Take notes on the key ideas on the KWO (Key Word Outline). When you write the summaries, you should write from your notes to help you avoid accidental plagiarism.
Step 3: WRITING
Write the summaries. You can either organize the summaries by article/essay or by concept. Use turnitin.com to help you make sure you are summarizing and putting the information in your own words. Look back at the Academic Integrity Philosophy in our syllabus for help.
Since you have to summarize information from at least 2 sources, you can but are not required to focus on 2 key points for each source and 250 words per key point. This is a general guideline and does not have to be followed.
You must include the MLA information for the source and you must write at least 1000 words.
Step 4: DESIGNING
After you have spell checked, grammar checked, and had at least one other set of eyes look over your work, submit it to turnitin.com. Then, copy your writing and paste it onto the Literary Criticisms page of your website. Make sure you write the essay on Google Docs and not on the webpage. This will help establish that you are the writer and not AI/ Include visual design elements to enhance your message. These elements should include titles, subtitles, images, etc. Remember there should never be a time that the entire screen is text only.
Include the MLA information to your bibliography page and make sure to link the actual url back to the page.
Remember: every page of your website must have a link back to our class website.
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