Literary Analysis Essay
Before you go any further searching for mentors, read this blog entry from Rebekah O'Dell of Moving Writers, and check out this one and these: A Different Way to Teach Literary Analysis and why literary analysis needs to be authentic.
A review of Bob Dylan's The Philosophy of Modern Song
From Moving Writers -- and the New Yorker: The Genius of Toni Morrison's Only Short Story and be sure to watch this video of Rebekah O'Dell modeling how she would use it with her students. Brilliant! (And consider subscribing to Moving Writers.)
Rainbows, Frogs, Dogs, and the Muppet Movie (Thanks to the Moving Writers blog.)
Literary Analysis Week Wrap Up.
Thanks to Carl Anderson at NCTE 2017 for this mentor text: Good Night Moon
In Beyond Literary Analysis, Rebekah O'Dell and Allison Marchetti refer to Joe Fassler's column in the Atlantic. In a recent column, writer Kristen Roupenian analyzes Joyce Carol Oates' story "Where are you Going? Where have you Been?" to show its influence on her writing. In that discussion she (warning: language may not be appropriate for your students)
Here's another text on Good Night Moon: an interview by Joe Fassler from his Atlantic columns By Heart with Celeste Ng. What Writers Can Learn from Good Night Moon (thanks to Three Teachers Talk and Charles Moore's blog.)
Check out this Slate essay about Harry Potter.
NPR's analysis of Katniss -- and great example of comparison/contrast -- and here's another essay about Hunger Games
An analysis of the show "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"
Writing reviews of movies can build the kind of thinking needed for analysis. Check out this padlet for a handful of reviews. Also here's a review of Cold Play and here's one for John Green's Turtles All the Way Down.
From The Atlantic comes this analysis of the syntax in The Empire Strikes Back.
Check out Vicki Vinton's blog, which explores ways of writing about literature.
Allison and Rebekah from Moving Writers recommend Lit Hub as a source to find mentor text for lit analysis.
From the New York Times book reviews:
A review of The Fault in Our Stars and The Probability of Miracles
An article on writing literary criticism from the New York Times with a list of possible mentor text
And from The Atlantic.
An analysis of Things Fall Apart
From Medium: What Static Shock Meant to Me as a Young Black Boy (with thanks to
Check below for more essays:
Child's Play -- The New Yorker
Frost's Road Not Taken -- Business Outsider