Theatre offers unique avenues into the meaning of a text—what might be only described in a novel or short story may be acted out and embodied in a play. It's a distinct mechanism of meaning-making and, as such, requires different tools and methods to dissect. This guide to identifying themes in theatrical works—from live performance…
Read More "“The Rising of the Moon” by Isabella Persse: Themes for Thespians"
Today, let’s take a peek at Anton Chekhov and his short story “The Lottery Ticket,” which we’ll use to walk you through every stage of summarization.
Read More "Anton Chekhov’s “The Lottery Ticket”: Learning to Summarize"
Titles. They're easy enough to overlook—you see them every time you pick a book up, but as soon as you crack its spine open, it disappears. But as your English teacher has likely explained a hundred times over, titles contain more significance than you might expect. They add nuance, they complicate, and they reveal subtlety.…
Read More "“The Homecoming” by Rabindranath Tagore: What’s in a Title?"
Analyzing short story characters can be difficult—you meet someone for just a few pages, and suddenly, you're just supposed to know everything about them? However, with a little focus and a simple, four-step framework, you can learn how to talk circles around any protagonist and answer questions, such as "What is Pahom's main flaw?" Now,…
Read More "Pahom’s Main Flaw: How to Analyze Short Story Characters"
A persuasive essay is defined by two purposes: to convince the audience to agree with the speaker’s position on a debatable issue and to inspire listeners to take action. In order to succeed, the speaker must forge a relationship with the audience, while appealing to their intellect and emotions. Let’s look at six steps to…
What Is an Introduction? As the first paragraph in your essay, a successful introduction grabs the readers' attention, gives them the background information needed to understand the essay’s topic, and ends with the essay’s thesis statement. Writing a strong introduction can be tricky for two reasons: it can be difficult to decide how much information…
What is a thesis statement? Simply put, the most important statement in an essay is your thesis. It is often the first and last sentence you work on, tinkering and revising throughout the writing process. It must be specific enough to support within the scope of the essay, but general enough to be relevant and…
A literary analysis essay is a piece of writing on a specific text or group of texts. In the context of most high school English classes, this type of essay asks you, the student writer, to develop an argument about a text and support that argument using evidence from the text. A well-written essay demonstrates…
