Draw from the Notes You Took While Reading

In order to be able to come up with a strong topic that you can turn into a viable thesis statement, be sure to draw from the notes that you took while reading the literary work. When you begin to write about a text, you can look back through your notes for details or passages that relate to each other. Think about how the author addresses a particular issue across multiple passages. Look for patterns in your notes, think about topics that might let you address that issue, and think critically about an approach that seems timely and pertinent to the classroom discussion about the text.

Good note-taking isolates particular aspects of a work and applies a systemized approach to analyzing them. Having a systemized approach to reading and note-taking is so important that we have devoted several chapters to explaining formalism and other theoretical approaches. As a reminder, here are some of the questions that may be asked by each school of criticism.

Class Studies

What does the book have to say about money and power? When do the characters mention money, wealth, class, status, and how are these things important to the plot and story? What economic values does the production implicitly or explicitly promote? What does the book have to say about social class?

Sociopolitical

At what time in history is the story set? How is that time period in history represented in ways that are relevant to the year the story was published? How are nationhood and nationality represented? How did the social and political context – the time and place of creation – affect the construction and meaning of the book?

Gender Studies

How is gender represented?  How are femininity and masculinity and other gendered identities defined and represented, both visually and in words?  How does gender factor into who has agency and autonomy? If relevant, how are gendered identities rejected?

Queer Studies

How is sexuality represented?  To what extent is the notion that heterosexually is “natural” subverted and challenged?

Psychological

What motivates the behaviors of a particular character in the work? How does the work represent the mind and the thoughts of the characters? Do any of the characters lend themselves to psychological diagnosis?

Postcolonial

How are race and ethnicity represented?  Who is doing the representing?  Which characters and what values are being affirmed and which characters are not—how so, and why?

Adaptation Studies

What is significant about the differences/similarities between the book and the film? How does the film’s creative team translate the written medium of a novel into film? Specifically, how are those specific components that are associated with novels (i.e. narrative voice, description of characters and scenes) translated to the screen?

Ecocriticism

How are nature and natural resources represented and treated? What is the attitude toward the environment, and message about the environment, both overall and as held by individual characters?

Disability Studies

How is the physical capacity of the body represented, both visually and in words? What is the attitude toward disability, and the message about being disabled, both overall and as held by individual characters? What is the attitude toward neurodivergence, mental disorders or chronic illness, and what is the literary work’s message about having a disorder or chronic illness or disability, both overall and as held by individual (often able-bodied) characters?

Presentism

How do our social, cultural, and intellectual contexts – the time and place of reception – affect the meaning of the text?

Strategy for Choosing Between Topics or Gathering More Evidence

Sometimes students think that when they make an argument they only need one example to prove their point. In actuality, a well-focused essay topic is one that exhausts all of the evidence. This means that you want to collect not just one example that relates to your proposed topic but, rather, all of the examples. Later on, you may be able to pare down your collection of evidence, but you want to at least be well-versed and familiar with all of the examples in the play. If it seems impossible to be able to find all of the examples on your topic, that is a sign that you probably need to narrow your focus.

Even if you took great notes during your first read and class discussions, you may be stuck choosing between two topics, or you may find that you need to gather more evidence of the topic you have chosen. In any case, you will want to re-read the play or novel, collecting all of the examples that are relevant to your topic(s).

One way to approach your task of gathering more evidence from the play is to chart it out. As you read, or re-read, your play or novel, choose one or two topics that you want to gather notes on. Type all of the examples from literary work that are related to those topics. Type in the most relevant quotes, and include the page number in the literary work that corresponds with each example. Put quotation marks around the words that you are quoting. Aim for at least four examples per topic, and your examples should come from throughout the entire work (not just from the same scene or chapter).

Topic 1: ______________________________________________________

Topic 2: ______________________________________________________

Continue Reading: 18.6 Writing Your Detailed Analysis of the Literary Work