Problem
Write an interpretive analysis essay on the following short stories that examines two literary elements. A least one of the literary terms you've examined should be a key term in your thesis statement
Topic: Lack London: "To Build a Fire"
Instruction to follow:
I. All topics must evolve into a concise and coherent thesis statement during the writing process.
II. You must use the text to support your interpretation; this means incorporating brief summaries, paraphrases and quotations into the discussion. Be sure to document accurately the page numbers.
III. Your paper must have a title that does more than repeat the title of the story; your title should reflect your claim: usually titles come to mind later in the writing process. Don't put off beginning your essay because you can't think of a title or a way to begin.
IV. Your introduction should include a clear thesis statement and mention the full name of the author and the story that you will examine, and it should be a well-developed paragraph that leads right into a discussion of the text/analysis by the second paragraph.
V. Five pages long with MLA citation.
You can use the bottom worksheet for getting idea how to take idea for writing the essay:
I. i. Write down what is most interesting and/or puzzling about your key text. What's the most intriguing question(s) you can ask about it right now?
ii. Now check that question - is it a question about the world outside the text, or a question about how the text makes meaning? If it's the former, transform it into an interpretive question about your text; if it's the latter, revise it to make it more specific and concentrate.
II. Now, return to your text: jot down a list of all the aspects of it that seem related to your question. In doing so, take in as many of the literary elements of it as you can: diction, tone, setting, character, imagery, symbol, figurative language, etc. Identify at least 3 specific moments by writing down the page #s, paragraph #s, or line #s for poetry.
III. Now, with all that stuff in mind, try writing a response to your question:
IV. Look at II, and list the pieces of evidence you found that seem to support that claim
V. Consider whether any of those pieces of evidence can be read in another way, a way that feels true but that's in tension with your first claim. Write that here.
VI. Ask yourself whether there are other pieces of evidence that come to mind that would support a claim in tension with the one you wrote above.
VII. Write down a key term(s) (See Harvey's "Elements of the Academic Essay") that can help direct your reader to a specific focus in your text. Write down its definition. Then make note of any occurrences in your text where this term is demonstrated significant to the meaning or effect of the text. Doing this will help you weed out any terms that are not going to serve well in your claim.