writing arguments about literature

1. Writing
Arguments about
Literature
Stories & Poems

2. Literature
Literature that we would deem
worthy of study in the
classroom tends to require
interpretation and tends to
deal with important issues
humans face.

3. Argument
Remember that when you
argue, you try to persuade an
audience to accept your
claims about an issue,
working toward this aim by
offering evidence, showing
your reasoning, making
assumptions, and employing
other kinds of appeals.

4. Audience
• Formal, academic writing
• Follow MLA format
• No 1st or 2nd person
• No contractions
• Use elevated language. Avoid
weak, ineffectual, and vague words.

5. Argument
Come up with
• an issue worth addressing,
• a claim about that issue, &
• evidence for that claim
Be prepared to identify
• your process of reasoning &
• your assumptions

6. Thesis
• Identify an issue
• Make a main claim (about a
theme)
• Preview your evidence

7. Issues
• Fact – gaps in information given
• Theme – main claim or message
• Definition – denotative (dictionary) &
connotative (associations)
• Symbolism – representations, imagery,
metaphor
• Patterns – organization, repetition, breaks in
patterns, oppositions
• Genre – impacts readers’ expectations

8. Issues
• Evaluation – judgment of characters & artistic
quality
• Philosophical – wise?
• Ethical – morally good?
• Aesthetic – successful art?
• Historical & cultural context – author’s
biography, time period & culture; time period &
culture of work’s setting; reception of work
• Social policy – attempt to highlight problems in
society &/or promote solutions
• Cause & effect – character’s motivation,
author’s purpose

9. Literary Studies
Topics
• gender
• ethnic background
• social class
• sexual orientation
• divisions, conflicts, & multiple forces within the
self
• boundaries
• politics & ideology
• carnivals & other festivities (celebrations &
retreat from work)

10. Literary Studies
Topics
• distinctions between the universal & the
historically or culturally specific
• relations between public & private, social &
personal
• relations between “high” and “low” (or popular)
culture
• role of performance in everyday life
• religious values
• desire & pleasure
• the body

11. Devising a Theme
• What does the work say about the issue?
• Midlevel generalization
• Not cliché
• Not specific to the work
• Complications invited
• Significance of title
• Observation or recommendation
• Phrase as a problem
• “a” theme (not “the” theme)

12. Evidence
• details from the work
• literary elements & devices
• direct quotations
• facts (historical or cultural
context)
• secondary sources (analysis)

13. Questions for
Analysis
• What goes with what?
(association)
• What opposes what?
(opposition)
• What follows what? (sequence)
• What follows from what?
(consequence)

14. Short Story
Elements
• Plot & structure
• Point of view
• Characters
• Setting
• Imagery ( & symbolism)
• Language (including dialogue)

15. Poetry Elements
• Speaker & tone
• Diction &
syntax
• Figures of
speech
• metaphor
• simile
• synecdoche
• metonymy
symbols
• Sound
• rhyme
• alliteration
• assonance
• Rhythm &
meter

16. Reading Poetry
• Read poem silently.
• Read it again, this time aloud, and listen for the
language. Listen for natural points of emphasis.
• Read a third time, marking key terms as you go.
Mark passages you emphasized while reading
aloud and why these seem important or warrant
emphasis.
• Divide the poem into a beginning, middle, and
end. Think about why you made the divisions you
made. What happens in each part?

17. Quote Sandwich
• Introduce the context
of the quote.
• Quote tag & quote
(copy & punctuate
accurately).
• Explain the
significance of the
quote (how it supports
your argument).

18. Quote Sandwich
Iago suspects that Othello slept with Iago’s wife.
From then on, the jealousy that grows inside
him turns into a wild, uncontrollable fire that
refuses to be put out. Iago does not think he is
talking about himself when he tells Roderigo,
“Our bodies are gardens, to which our wills are
gardeners” (I.iii.314-315). His will is controlled
by jealousy, which causes him to act out of his
jealous nature.

19. Secondary Sources
• Must use a quote tag. No floating quotes.
• unacceptable:
“Xxxxxxxxxx” (34).
• minimum:
John Smith writes, “Xxxxxxxxxx” (34).
• better:
John Smith, professor of English at X University, asserts,
“Xxxxxxxxxx” (34).
• best:
John Smith, professor of English at X University, explains
the character’s motivation when he asserts, “Xxxxxxxxxx”
(34).

20. Quote Sandwich
Trainers also can prevent ailments as simple as
an asthma attack. Ron Walker, who is a clinical
assistant professor at the University of Tulsa in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, uses an example of a high
school basketball player who died from an
asthma attack to emphasize how important a
trainer is for prevention. Walker said, “Her death
might have been prevented had her coach been
properly trained or if an athletic trainer were
present” (qtd. in Brewer). Being a medical
professional, a trainer is able to keep things
under control so a problem or injury does not
become something so drastic.

21. Quote Sandwich
Odysseus’s nostos story, then, becomes
not only one of literal return to home by
surviving life-threatening dangers but
also a return to the self. W. B. Stanford
sums up this sentiment when he writes,
“The movement of the Odyssey is
essentially inwards, homewards,
towards normality” (50). Through his
nostos, Odysseus achieves the soldier’s
return as he struggles to reintegrate into
the normal, domestic world that he left

22. Explain Reasoning &
Assumptions: Sample
“This is why having a good family is so
important in today’s society because there are
so many people out there that are so
accustomed to bad moral character and will
share that with others around them. For the
ones that are accustomed to bad morals, such
as Isis , are taking Americans with somewhat of
a good morality and infesting them with their
awful morals. If more and more people get
accustomed to the morals such as Isis has, the
world will be a really scary place to live in.”

23. Explain Reasoning &
Assumptions: Sample
“To most people in the U.S, Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi , the leader of the terrorist group,
ISIS, has no value for family nor love nor
friendship; that is why he kills people without
thinking about the effect it would have on
their families. A man with wise judgment
would not be able to lead a terrorist group
and make the world unsafe for billions of
people in order to prove a point.”

24. Explain Reasoning &
Assumptions: Sample
“Say there are two first-world countries with a similar
number of citizens, and they conduct a literacy census
on their respective populations. Once the census for
each country is completed, it is revealed that Country
One has a much higher literacy rate than Country Two.
The leaders of Country Two decide that they need to
take measures in order to raise their country’s literacy
rate to at least match Country One’s literacy rate. Envy
makes people within a community want to better
themselves, and if they were deprived of it, society
would become dull and stagnant, with everyone
content with what they have and never wanting

25. Explain Reasoning &
Assumptions: Sample
“For example, the terrorist group in Nigeria,
Boko Haram, forbade western education
because they believe it defies their religion,
so they terrorize others that do not have the
same belief. If this terrorist group valued
respect for others, they would acknowledge
and even protect others’ views of western
education, thereby creating a safer world.”

26. Comparison
• Write a thoughtful analytical response to
each piece individually.
• Take notes on similarities and differences
between the two pieces.
• Identify an issue that both pieces
address. Do they share any themes?
• Consider weighting your comparison
(see Arguing about Literature pg 115)

27. Structures for
Comparison
• Address one piece fully, then the
second piece (2 or 4 body paragraphs).
• Address a literary element or device in
each piece, then a different literary
element or device in each piece (2 or 4
body paragraphs).
• Weighted comparison: Focus on one
piece and use the other only as
support.