Writing is the most important skill you will develop in American Studies. Each term you will be required to write a major essay on a novel. Additionally, we will focus on informative and persuasive writing.

Writing an essay of literary analysis fulfills several goals of our class and the state core curriculum. The process used in these essays reiterates the process of good writing set forth in the state core.
∙ The required pre-write fulfills Core Standard 4080-1001 where students are asked to set a purpose for writing, generate ideas for a topic, select and focus these ideas, and then elicit feedback on the quality of initial ideas from peers, teachers, family members, and others.
∙ Requiring a draft of the essay focuses on Core Standards 4080-1002 and 1003 , which asks that students use composing strategies to construct a written draft, establish a main idea or identify a central theme for writing (thesis), use an organizational pattern to structure information, elaborate ideas through the use of detail, and then evaluate their own and others’ writing and elicit feedback from peers, teachers, family members, and others according to an analytical assessment system (the rubric handed out with the assignment). This draft and revision process also fulfills Core Standard 4080-1004, which focuses on the technical aspects of writing by asking students to edit text to conform to the conventions of standard English that include capitalization, punctuation, usage, and correct spelling.

The content and structure requirements of the essay of literary analysis take the student beyond the conventions of writing to a higher level of thinking and analysis. The selection of concrete details moves past basic comprehension of the text to understanding of theme. As students place concrete details in their essay, they learn to paraphrase, summarize, and integrate quotations into their own writing.

The writing of commentary is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the essay. Commentary asks students to give their opinion, interpretation, insight, analysis or evaluations about the topic. Commentary is what sets an essay apart from a report. It requires students to think. Extensive research of hundreds of high school essays over the last decade revealed that essays typically given higher scores and teacher praise instinctively reflected a natural ratio of one concrete detail to two commentaries.

In order to move eighth grade students to that instinctual level, the required essay is very formulaic. This ensures that students understand the parts of the essay and can recognize the difference in concrete details and commentary. As students progress, they can move beyond the constraints of phrasing so that the 1CD:2CM ratio flows naturally. This process takes months and can even take a majority of the year at the eighth grade level.

The over-riding goal is to move students beyond a paper that is merely free of technical errors to a paper that actually says something of worth. We aren’t looking for an essay that is a recitation of facts or a rambling of ideas. Structure, organization, and a message that is well-supported is the goal.