Students often have difficulty making the leap from comprehending literature to analyzing it. These tips show the interrelationship at play between the two and examples.
Understanding literary elements is a complex process that encourages students to develop skills existing at several levels of Bloom's taxonomy. For this reason, teachers have a wonderful opportunity to scaffold learning experiences using literary elements when teaching fiction. By teaching students to own their knowledge of literary elements, teachers are helping them build a solid foundation of analytical thinking skills.
Defining Literary Elements
Analyzing literature first requires students to understand a variety of literary terms and definitions. Just like a handyman carries around his trusty tool bag, literature students must fill up their own resource sack before getting down to the challenging work of analysis. Therefore, they must know the concrete definitions to an array of literary terms. Be sure to provide students with a comprehensive list of terms they will be expected to know or learn throughout the school year.
Applying Literary Elements
It's important that teachers start out by explaining to students that literary elements are tools that will help them access literature for the rest of their lives. These are terms and concepts that they need to not only thoroughly understand, but also to use and apply to different texts as they progress through high school and college.
Analysis Enhances Comprehension
Consider Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
The Hound of the Baskervilles, a famous Sherlock Holmes tale. This can be a dense text for students to comprehend and, although they are likely to enjoy the suspenseful plot, they may not connect with the language. But when students apply their knowledge of literary elements to such as text, they can more deeply connect with the story, identify the characters, and uncover timeless themes still relevant in today's society. They will start to realize that
analysis improves comprehension, and in return comprehension improves analysis. But they must be heartily supported to get there.
Scaffolding Analysis
Ideally, teachers will scaffold the use of sophisticated literary elements in the upper grades with the more concrete, easily understood terms in the lower grades such as
- indirect characterization
- direct characterization
- plot
- external conflict
- internal conflict
Literary Elements Diagnostic Testing
One way to ensure your students are mostly on the same page is to administer a diagnostic test assessing their current knowledge of literary elements. You may not be as successful using dictionary definitions here; instead, try incorporating examples into your questions. This way, you are more likely to uncover what students really know but haven't necessarily memorized.
Sample Questions
Here are two sample questions that illustrate the idea that comprehension enhances analysis.
1. Who is being described in the following quote?
“ . . . he had contrived, with that catlike love of personal cleanliness which was one of his characteristics, that his chin should be as smooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in Baker Street” (178).
A. Dr. Watson
B. Mr. Barrymore
C. Sherlock Holmes
D. Mr. Frankland
2. In the above quote, what literary element is being applied?
A. Personification
B. Simile
C. Direct characterization
D. Indirect characterization
Throughout your course, you can easily take this discussion further by asking more thought-provoking questions, such as
- Why does Doyle use direct characterization at some points in the novel and indirect characterization at others?
- How is the character indirectly revealed throughout the course of the novel? Consider both the character's speech and actions.
- Which method of characterization is more effective when revealing complex characters? Cite examples from the text to support your position.
Encourage students to see the many benefits of understanding and actively considering the function of literary elements when they read fiction. The ultimate goal, of course, is for students to apply their knowledge of literary elements to help assess and respond to a variety of texts with relative comfort and a degree of authority.
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