Description
Part I
Using TEA/PIE format as a model for this essay project, compose an example body paragraph wherein you adapt the following guide to your specific ideas. Afterwards, refer to the instructions for Part II to further fortify the connections between your ideas.
- What is your analytic claim or central idea of this body paragraph? How can you state this idea in a single sentence and show a clear connection to your thesis? This will be your topic sentence. . .
- What passages, quotes or paraphrases from the novel illustrate and support the analytic claim stated in your topic sentence? This information will be your evidence. . .
- How can you explain the ways in which your evidence and analytic claim relate to your thesis? Why ultimately do the ideas stated in this paragraph matter? What do these ideas suggest about the big picture ideas of your thesis? This explanation will become your analysis. . .
*If you structure your body paragraphs beginning with the topic sentence, followed by evidence and then including analysis toward the end, you will largely succeed at organizing and clarifying your ideas in academic essay writing.
Part II
Working with the body paragraph you’ve developed from following the above instructions, refer to the four criteria below to help create clearer connections in your ideas between sentences.
- Refer to your thesis for the essay and then focus on the interpretative claim you’ve introduced in the topic sentence for this body paragraph. Does the first sentence of the body paragraph reflect the thesis and introduce the main idea of that paragraph?
- Find passages or excerpts from the novel that illustrate or correspond to the claim you’ve made in the topic sentence. How can quotes and paraphrases from the novel support the point of this paragraph made in the topic sentence?
- Referring to the specific points in your topic sentence, establish connections between it and the references you’ve identified in the novel. How does your evidence relate to the claim made in the topic sentence? How does each piece of evidence work to illustrate or support your claim? How can you explicitly create connections between these ideas in writing?
- As you introduce evidence in your body paragraph, make use of signal phrases to ‘preview’ your analysis and contextualize the evidence. Refer to the attached guide for examples of these ‘signal phrases or templates’. Do you explain your evidence sufficiently? Does analysis create connections between this body paragraph and th thesis that are clear?
Materials on developing thesis statements were introduced in the last unit to build from your experiences as an academic writer and adapt them for literary writing. You might wish to refer back to those materials as you develop the thesis statement for this essay project.
If you wish, you can adapt this model to develop the thesis: Part 1: A reference to the source text + Part 2: Preview of your analytic points + Part 3: Introduction of your interpretative claim.
This might look like, “(1) In Albert Camus’s The Plague, (2) characters are reflective of their historical position in expressing their gender roles in response to the epidemic, (3) thus showing how social constructs like gender are historically contingent social information that can be accessed through a literary analysis.
