Readers-Writers Workshop: Simplifying Literary Analysis
Using routines when writing can be an essential scaffold for challenging times
Once I finished Walden by Henry Thoreau and wrote my brief review on Goodreads, I looked for what others thought of the book. The most popular reviews rise to the top of a book’s feed. They tend to be popular because, in my opinion, they are well written.
For example, here is what Riku Sayuj had to say about Walden.
What makes his writing good? As a reader, I found many areas to praise.
The reviewer started with a somewhat provocative statement.
He offered up a personal experience that conveys the challenge of this text.
He supported his opinion with a well-placed excerpt from the text.
He brought the review home with a restatement of his big takeaway.
Additionally, the reviewer both confirmed my own feeling about the text and brought a unique perspective. Sayuj’s insights also increased my comprehension of Walden. For example, I did not know that it influenced Gandhi.
So if this is quality writing in response to a complex text (and can 487 likes on Goodreads be wrong?), how does one do it?
Better Writing Made Easier
I almost wrote “good writing” for this heading and then replaced it with better. There is no guarantee that a tool or strategy will raise the quality of someone’s writing to a level of excellence. But they can improve a writer’s odds.
One strategy is using a writing routine, or structure. English teacher Gretchen Bernabei offers structures for literary analysis. Adapted by Thomas Newkirk in Minds Made for Stories: How We Really Read and Write Informational and Persuasive Texts, he takes Bernabei’s approach and created the following steps for this writing process (p. 49):
Describe a scene or situation in a text that raises an interesting question.
What is that question?
What are some possible answers to that question?
Which is the most compelling answer to that question?
How does this new understanding of the situation help you understand other parts of the book?
As implied in Newkirk’s book title, this routine follows a narrative structure - a story of the reader’s thinking as he or she makes sense of a complex text that also offers new insights for other readers.
Reading-to-Writing: Deconstructing the Review
To become a better writer, we cannot simply read a lot. We have to read critically and with a purpose, specifically to understand how an author did what they did.
So let’s use Newkirk’s/Bernabei’s routine to analyze the Walden review mentioned earlier.
Does the author describe a scene or situation that raises an interesting question? Yes. In the beginning, the reviewer asserts that Thoreau almost wrote two different books, “the second half is written by Thoreau, the amateur naturalist”. He starts to suggest that Walden may have lacked focus, pointing to his own struggles to read the book as evidence to support this position.
Does the author offer a question? Yes, in so many words. He notes in the third paragraph: “I just wish that Thoreau had stuck to telling about the affairs of men and their degraded ways of living and about his alternate views.” The buried question here is, “Why did Thoreau share so many of his observations of nature in the second half of the book?”
What are some possible answers to the question? Maybe this is where the review fell short, at least following this writing structure. If one would rewrite the review, they might offer perspectives from other readers of Walden, such as this summary from Maria Popova for Brainpickings. Then the reviewer could offer their commentary on their thinking.
What is the most compelling answer to this question? The reviewer quoted Thoreau and denoted it as the core philosophy from Walden. But it doesn't really answer the question as to why the second half of the text offered so many descriptions of the natural world. The quote provides some resolution to the analysis but does leave some potential for an improved piece on the table.
(#4 seems to negate the fifth question, so I will not address it here.)
A teacher could use this routine to facilitate a writing conference and provide feedback about areas for celebration and improvement.
Writing-to-Reading: Trying it Out
If the purpose of literacy analysis is to benefit the understanding of other readers as well as our own, and if a book review is a basic form of literary analysis, then most any reader could feel empowered to engage in this type of writing.
Below is my initial short review of Walden in Goodreads:
A challenging text to read, and the rewards are equal. I recommend this annotated edition for understanding the cultural/historical references, although the side notes do add to the overall reading quantity.
Weak, I admit. I think I was mentally exhausted after reading the book and phoned in the review. Now feeling more refreshed and fortified with a scaffold, here is an example of how I used the routine to write a better book review/literary analysis. (Numbers at the end signify the step I used.)
As I noted in a previous article about Walden, Thoreau stated that “to read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” (1)
This raises an interesting question: Does reading need to be challenging to be rewarding? (2)
Thoreau seems to think so, in both the above passage and in his own writing. For example, much of the second half of Walden is a series of observations of nature: of the pond in winter, of winter inhabitants, of spring. Monitoring my own thinking during this part of the text, I found fewer quotes to document in my journal.
And yet today’s literature on literacy education promotes a different philosophy: Learning to read should involve lots of easy texts. In their seminal article “Every Child, Every Day”, researchers Richard Allington and Rachael Gabriel recommended that students read text they can understand, meaning at an independent level with at least 98% decoding accuracy.
Thinking about the context of Thoreau’s times, one consideration if not an answer to this question is there wasn’t nearly as many easy, enjoyable texts available to readers. Literacy rates were lower in the 1850s. Now, text is everywhere: on screens as well as in many forms of print. So the reality for this time period was: people seemed to need to engage in rigorous reading to construct meaning from what texts were available. (3)
Another possible reason Thoreau believed reading should be challenging is the type of texts that he subscribed to as a reader himself. Many of his sources and references come from classic texts including mythology and Greek philosophy. Likely, he emulated much of the same style and structure in Walden. His work and interests were inspired by the deep thinkers of the past. To convey these complex ideas using simpler prose may not have seemed possible.
A third consideration: the second half of Walden is a test. It’s purposefully challenging. Can you, the reader, after absorbing the ideas of simplicity, intention, and observation in the first half, now apply them as you read about the natural world with rich description and little narrative arc? Do you have the capacity for presence? Maybe the reward was the conclusion, which brings home many of the ideas discussed throughout the text.
As complex as this text is, I have to say that I found Walden at its most engaging when I didn’t have to stop and check for understanding, like when Thoreau made his many cultural and historical references. It slowed things down, unnecessarily even. So to answer the question, Does reading need to be challenging to be rewarding?, my answer is “No”. The simplest ideas are sometimes the most important; Walden is at its most readable and enjoyable when Thoreau’s ideas are conveyed with ease. (4)
That said, I have a renewed appreciation for literacy in the 19th century. There was a love for language, almost an expectation for detailed description. How might people 170 years in the future view our writings? Hopefully with clarity and appreciation, but we are limited as was Thoreau by our own conditions. (5)
Reflection on the Routine
First, this is not a perfect piece. But it is an upgrade on my couple of sentences I originally offered in my Goodreads interview.
What went well? To start, I did not feel constrained by the structure offered by Newkirk and Bernabei. In fact, it was liberating to write with guidance that the five questions provided. It would work well as a shared writing experience with students, articulating my thinking aloud as we composed.
In addition, the routine forced me to think more deeply about the text and what I was trying to say. For instance, I wanted to stop after my initial answer to the question I posed. It seemed satisfactory enough. Yet by forcing me to consider other alternatives, I developed new theories about the author’s purpose, which improved my understanding.
It is also worth noting that the routine put me, the reader, in a position of authority. I was asked to critique literature. At any age, how empowering would this feel for students and build their confidence as readers and writers?
One more thing I will say about routines: they shouldn’t be used all the time for guiding writers. Sometimes we just want to create and see what happens. Leave the literary baggage at home and discover something new. In fact, that advice can go for just about all structures in education. Instead of “literacy analysis”, what about “book reviews”? Language matters, and understanding what is being said matters most.