2. AGENDA
• Presentation: Writing Paper #1
• The topic
• Review of the texts
• Brainstorming
• How to write a response to
literature.
• Due Friday 11/7 at noon
• Test
3. Prompt Introduction
• In this first half of our quarter, we have read
and discussed multiple texts, theories, and
opinions on both literature and literary analysis,
and for this reason, I offer you many choices for
your first essay: In a thesis driven essay of 2-3
pages, analyze one or more aspects of one of
the primary texts we have read this quarter.
Aim to convince readers that your
interpretation adds to the conversation
among those who read and write about queer
texts. Back up your analysis with reasons
and support from the story. Consider using
one or more secondary sources to help
support your ideas and assertions.
4. Primary Texts
“The Long Arm” by Mary
Wilkins Freeman
“Paul’s Case” by Willa
Cather
“Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself”
by Radclyffe Hall
“Slater’s Pins have no
Points” by Virginia Woolf
“Arthur Snatchfold” by EM
Forster
“The Sea Change” by Ernest
Hemingway
“Momma” by John Horne
Burns
Giovanni's Room by James
Baldwin 1956
Secondary Sources
From Critical Theory
Today “Lesbian, Gay, and
Queer Theory” by Lois
Tyson
“From Psychopathia
Sexualis” Krafft-Ebbing
“Studies in the
Psychology of Sex” by
Havelock Ellis
“The Psychogenesis of a
Case of Homosexuality in
a Woman” by
Sigmund Freud
“A Letter to an American
Mother” Sigmund Freud
5. Ways to proceed: Choose your focal point: you might
consider one of these questions to help you get started
1. What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay,
lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed
in...the work's thematic content or portrayals of its
characters?
2. What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a
specific lesbian, gay, or queer works?
3. What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer,
gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary
history?
4. How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that
are by writers who are apparently homosexual?
5. How might the works of heterosexual writers be reread to
reveal an unspoken or unconscious lesbian, gay or queer
presence? That is, does the work have an unconscious
lesbian, gay or queer desire or conflict that it submerges?
6. Or consider one of these:
6. What does the work reveal about the operations (socially,
politically, psychologically) of heterosexism?
7. How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of
sexuality and sexual "identity," that is the ways in which
human sexuality does not fall neatly into the separate
categories defined by the words homosexual and
heterosexual?
8. What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the
perceived masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what
elements exhibit traits of both (bisexual)?
9. What elements of the text can be perceived as being
masculine (active, powerful) and feminine (passive,
marginalized) and how do the characters support these
traditional roles?
10. What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or
characters who question the masculine/feminine binary? What
happens to those elements/characters?
7. In your groups, consider texts that you could
use in discussing the following topics:
• Manifestations of queerness on the body
• Internalized oppression in lgbtqqia2p people
• Identify, analyze and explain coded texts: when, how, and
why?
• Analyze the military as a homosocial/homosexual realm
• Analyze and explain social stigma and consequences for
homosexual behavior and those effects on queer people.
• Identify, analyze, and explain demons and predators in
queer literature.
• Analyze spaces specific to queer characters
• Analyze the connection between death and queerness
8. Discuss these themes:
• Masculinity (in men
and women)
• Femininity (in men and
women)
• American attitudes
versus European
attitudes
• Class/economic
privilege and
queerness
• Love
• Dreams
• Sexuality and Sexual
Identity
• Guilt and blame
• Isolation
• Choices
• Names and naming
• Queer spaces
9. HOW TO WRITE A
RESPONSE TO
LITERATURE
Adapted from a handout from The Writing
Center, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
10. Interpretations of fiction are generally
opinions, but not all opinions are equal.
A good, valid, and interesting interpretation will do the
following:
avoid the obvious (in other words, it won’t argue a
conclusion that most readers could reach on their own
from a general knowledge of the story)
support its main points with strong textual evidence
from the story and/or secondary sources.
use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence
relates to the main points of the interpretation.
11. Be Familiar with the Text
A good paper begins with the writer having a
solid understanding of the work. Being able to
have the whole text in your head when you begin
thinking through ideas will actually allow you to
write the paper more quickly in the long run.
Spend some time just thinking about the story.
Flip back through the book and consider what
interests you about this book—what seemed
strange, new, or important?
12. Explore Potential Topics
Consider how you might approach each topic.
What will your answer to each question show about the
text?
So what? Why will anyone care?
Try this phrase for each prompt to see if you have an
idea: “This book/short story shows
______________________. This is important because
______________________.”
13. Select a Topic with Plenty of Evidence
Narrow down your list of
possible topics by identifying
how much evidence or how
many details you could use to
investigate each potential
issue.
Keep in mind that papers rely
on ample evidence and that
having a lot of details to
choose from can make your
paper easier to write.
Jot down all the events or
elements of the story that
have some bearing on the
two or three topics that
seem most promising.
Don’t launch into a topic
without considering all the
options first because you
may end up with a topic that
seemed promising initially
but that only leads to a dead
end.
14. Make an extended list of evidence
Skim back over the story or poem and
make a more comprehensive list of the
details that relate to your point.
As you make your notes keep track of
page numbers so you can quickly find the
passages again when you need them.
15. Select your evidence
Once you’ve made your expanded list of
evidence, decide which supporting details are the
strongest.
First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to
your thesis statement.
Second, choose the pieces of evidence you’ll be able to
say the most about. Readers tend to be more dazzled
with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of
quotes from the book.
Select the details that will allow you to show off your own
reasoning skills and allow you to help the reader see the
story in a way he or she may not have seen it before.
16. Refine your thesis
• Now, go back to your working thesis and refine it
so that it reflects your new understanding of your
topic. This step and the previous step (selecting
evidence) are actually best done at the same
time, since selecting your evidence and defining
the focus of your paper depend upon each other.
17. Organize your evidence
Once you have a clear thesis, go back to your list of
selected evidence and group all the similar details
together. The ideas that tie these clusters of evidence
together can then become the claims that you’ll make in
your paper.
Keep in mind that your claims should not only relate to all
the evidence but also clearly support your thesis.
Once you’re satisfied with the way you’ve grouped your
evidence and with the way that your claims relate to your
thesis, you can begin to consider the most logical way to
organize each of those claims.
18. Interpret your evidence
Avoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from
your story. Each time you use a specific reference to your
story, be sure to explain the significance of that evidence
in your own words.
To get your readers’ interest, draw their attention to elements
of the story that they wouldn’t necessarily notice or
understand on their own.
If you are quoting passages without interpreting them, you’re
not demonstrating your reasoning skills or helping the reader.
In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves
putting into your paper what is already in your head.
19. Keep in Mind
Don't forget to consider the scope of your project: This
paper is short! What can you reasonably cover in a paper
of that length?
Eliminate wordiness and repetition to ensure that you
have room to make all of your points.
See me if you are lost or confused!
20. Writing Tips
•Write about literature in present tense
• Avoid using “thing,” “something,” “everything,” and
“anything.”
• Avoid writing in second person.
• Avoid using contractions.
• Cut Wordy Sentences
• Avoid run-on sentences and fragments.
• Check for misused words
• Put commas and periods inside of quotation marks
21. Miscellaneous Questions
• Does the paper follow MLA guidelines?
• For help, click on “MLA Guidelines” and view the “Basic MLA format”
video.
• Is the page length within assigned limits?
• Is the font type and size within the assigned guidelines?
• Does the Header follow the assignment guidelines?
• Is the professor's name spelled correctly? Kim Palmore
• Is your name spelled correctly?
• Does the paper have a title? Is it a good title? Is the title in the
appropriate location?
• Have you italicized book and movie titles and put stories,
articles, and poems in quotation marks.
