Finding meaning . . .

2. Literary Interpretation Finding meaning . . . From Reading to Writing After reading a powerful work of literature like Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” or Stephen Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism,” you may be filled with questions about its meaning.

3. Literary Interpretation Finding meaning . . . Writing a literary interpretation is a good way to explore your own ideas about the meaning of a literary work and to analyze the elements in the work that communicate the meaning.

4. B a s i c s i n a B o x Literary Interpretation at a Glance Introduction Standards for Writing RUBRIC Introduces the literary work and includes a clear thesis statement that summarizes the interpretation A successful literary interpretation should • clearly identify the title and author of the literary work • give a clearly stated interpretation at or near the beginning of the essay • present evidence and quotations from the text to support the interpretation • take into account other interpretations and contradictory evidence Conclusion Summarizes the interpretation

5. Prewriting 1 Writing Your Literary Interpretation Begin by choosing a work of literature to write about. You might select a work that you especially liked or one that you had problems with in some way.

6. Planning Your Literary Interpretation 1. Develop an interpretation. Read the story more than once, taking notes. Freewrite about the literary elements in the work. What are the main character’s most significant thoughts or actions? What is the central conflict? What is the theme? Write your interpretation of the story as a tentative thesis statement.

7. Evidence from the text How it supports interpretation Planning Your Literary Interpretation 2. Gather evidence to support your interpretation. Use a chart to list significant passages from the text and how they support your interpretation. 3. Test your interpretation. Does the evidence support your interpretation? What contradictory evidence did you find? How can you revise your interpretation to account for more of the evidence?

8. Drafting 2 Writing Your Literary Interpretation If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn’t thinking. General George S. Patton, U.S. Army

9. Drafting 2 Writing Your Literary Interpretation Try out your interpretation by writing down your ideas. A good way to start is to try to get through an entire first draft without stopping. You can revise form and style later. Eventually, you should organize your writing into the following parts:

10. Drafting 2 Writing Your Literary Interpretation • Introduction—identifies the author and title of the work and briefly states the main point of the interpretation • Body—presents evidence from the text to support the interpretation • Conclusion—restates the interpretation and summarizes the evidence

11. 3 Writing Your Literary Interpretation Revising TARGET SKILL CONCLUSIONS A good conclusion in literary interpretations summarizes what was presented in the body of the paper, does not introduce anything new, and leaves the reader with a sense of closure and something to think about.

12. 4 Writing Your Literary Interpretation Editing and Proofreading TARGET SKILL VERB TENSE When writing about a literary work, use the present tense (called the historical present); that is, write about a past action as if it were happening now. However, keep the verbs in quotations in the tense in which they were written.