Teaching Literature – Scholar's Atelier

7 Tips for Using Background Knowledge to Improve Students’ Literary Analysis

Last month, I wrote about how to help your students analyze language. However, we’ve all read literary analysis essays that are mostly just a list of language features and their effects. To use this skill effectively, students need to be able to relate the language to the wider themes of the text and to theContinue reading “7 Tips for Using Background Knowledge to Improve Students’ Literary Analysis”

How to Teach Your Students to Analyze Literary Devices

Are your students literary train-spotters? Do their text annotations mostly consist of the names of poetic devices? Do they have random sentences in their literary analysis essays where they mention that a quotation they’ve used contains a metaphor, without saying anything about how it works or why the author put it there? It’s one ofContinue reading “How to Teach Your Students to Analyze Literary Devices”