Writing in the Literature Classroom Focusing Your Sense of Purpose in an Essay on a Literary Text
Why worry about the role of writing in the literature classroom? Just for starters: Essays about literature tend to be really boring.
How boring? The first paragraph of a sample student essay in a standard writing-about-literature textbook, published in 2000 and modified here to protect the guilty: It is not surprising that two poems by the same author somewhat resemble each other. What is especially interesting about James Joyce s Circe and Soccer is that, although they both deal with young men who achieve a sense of new life or growth outside of their time spent in high school, the poems differ greatly in what we call tone. Circe is bittersweet, or perhaps even bitter and tragic, whereas Soccer is romantic and in some ways comic.
Well, that was pretty boring. Not like in the good old days back when students knew how to write... The opening paragraph of a similar essay in a similar text in 1982, similarly modified to protect the guilty: In his play Circe, James Joyce uses bizarre situations and a series of games to convey his theme to his audience. Through many ridiculous and unexpected situations, Joyce reveals that politics, in addition to interrupting life s simple and most cherished pleasures, is an absurd, foolish, and fruitless game played by nations. Communication is the solution that Joyce offers, but another absurdity of life, human impatience, hinders that, too, and the absurdity of politics keeps emerging as the main theme.
Seems hopeless. Where can one go for relief? You only have to go as far as paragraph two: In the opening scene, the audience feels the tension of world events as the sounds of rioting crowds, political chants, and campaign slogans cover the stage. However, all illusions of a serious discussion are shattered when Pogo, one of the rioters, takes a Gameboy out of his backpack and begins to play, meanwhile humming the tune of a popular TV commercial for diet soda.
But it s your job to be bored reading boring essays. Not true. And besides, the boring quality of the essays is symptomatic of larger problems -- lack of purpose and conclusions about the experience. And one more thing: why not just start the essay with the second paragraph, since that was a lot more interesting?
What made it interesting? Concrete, specific details that got the reader of the essay immediately engaged with the subject matter. It wasn t reporting on the text from a vast distance, but showing the text up close and personal.
What do such details have to do with a sense of a larger purpose? They create a sense of a purpose if -- and this is crucial to a sense of purpose-- they get framed within the format of a problem-solving essay. Therefore: Consider building an essay around an interpretive problem.
So what s an interpretive problem? It is a specific issue in the literary text that we might puzzle over or disagree about. It might appear as an explicit question early in the essay, a problem to be solved by that essay. The development of its answer will enhance the aesthetic experience of the text by giving us new insights.
I m glad to hear that there is at least an answer involved here. The answer is a kind of interpretive assertion, one of many possible claims we might make about the meaning of a text. An interpretive assertion that serves as the solution to an interpretive problem is the thesis of the essay, that essay s main interpretive claim.
Sounds boring. I thought the idea was less boring. Look for an interpretive problem at those places in the literary text where something feels strange to you. Think of it as a point of weirdness. Or if you prefer a fancier layer of critical theory, a point of dissonance.
Is there some reference work that lists these problems for various literary texts? Interpretive problems emerge out of the reading experience of individual readers. They re not located inside the text (in the way that a symbol is arguably located, for instance), but are created through the interaction between text and reader.
Can t I just pick one of the study questions at the end of the chapter? I thought you agreed that we were trying here to escape boredom. But okay, let s try an example.
Finally. I thought you d never provide one. If you ask, for instance, who is the narrator of a short story like William Faulkner s A Rose for Emily, you have something that feels too much like the study question at the end of the chapter. It doesn t have sufficient focus and immediacy to be very engaging for many readers. It s an ambiguous issue in that story, but it s still operating at too global a level.
But what s a more interesting way to get at this issue? Instead, look for some particular detail that seems especially problematic, a point of weirdness in the text, as it were, but a detail that might point towards the identity of the narrator. For instance, a couple of paragraphs before the end of the story, we find this passage: Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.
What s the big deal? I don t see the problem. That s because an interpretive-problem essay needs to begin by defining the problem in such a detailed way that it also becomes a problem for the reader of that essay.
So, fine -- define. The entire story has been told from the point of view of the we narrator, yet in this paragraph, suddenly, it shifts to the point of view of they, only to shift back to we in the next paragraph. Why would the story do this, when, presumably, the we could easily have stayed consistent? And an answer to this question will take you a considerable distance towards discussing the ambiguous identity of the narrator, although via a much more interesting route than starting with the question, who is that narrator?
What are the goals for all of this (besides more interesting essays)? More interesting essays would be plenty. But there s a lot more: Emphasis upon process rather than on product Fostering of critical-thinking skills: problem solving, analysis, the stages in a presentation Student as teacher
Student as TEACHER?!?!? But that s YOUR job! In identifying an interpretive problem and then in recreating the intellectual journey by which that problem was addressed and solved, the student is dealing with material for which she is the authority, not I.
Does this have anything at all to do with real life as a motivator? I don t think we have quite enough time here to resolve the old art vs. life dichotomy. But an interpretive-problem approach does emphasize: The role that individual details contribute to the overall meaning of complex written texts.
I think we already knew that. Granted. But the tricky part is how to talk about that in such a way that we can develop more sophisticated criticalthinking skills and more effective ways to talk about that relationship of the specific to the general.
What makes you think that any of this is going to work? I ve been using this as a model for essay assignments in dozens of literature courses over the past twenty years. From my own experience in reading student essays (not bored any longer) and from my students experience in reporting on this assignment, I know that it works.
Any other benefits to this interpretiveproblem stuff? You re a tough audience. But as a matter of fact, there are more benefits.
An interpretive problem will help you to define your purpose... which is to solve the problem, and suggest your thesis... which is a statement of the solution.
A well-constructed interpretive problem will even help you to set up an overall arrangement pattern for the entire essay... which is the sequence of steps towards the solution of your problem.
Keys to a good interp-problem essay: Problematize a specific feature of the text. Re-create the feeling of a journey in thinking through the problem. Teach the reader by leading the way through the steps in a whole interpretive process.
And still more keys: Keep other points of view in mind, other solutions (and here s where group brainstorming and collaborative research can be especially helpful). Don t solve the problem by jumping to a conclusion before you ve looked at the evidence.
Any closing words of advice? Don t assume that one little set of PowerPoint slides is going to answer all of your questions. An interpretive-problem approach is going to be new and complicated for lots of people, so try it out, think about it, ask questions, and truly ask yourself: Is this interpretive-problem essay that I ve written more interesting for someone to read than the standard essay on a literary text?