Beyond Literary Analysis

1. Analysis in the Wild

2. Toward a New Understanding of Analysis

3. The Essential Tools of Analysis

4. Exploring Passion

5. Exploring Ideas

6. Exploring Structure

7. Exploring Authority

8. Movie and Television Analysis

9. Music Analysis

10. Sports Analysis

11. Video Game Analysis

12. Literary Analysis

13. Gathering Your Own Resources

This book is written to help you plan instruction that supports the development of writers, specifically writers who are analyzing texts. The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 is an immersion into analytical writing that is current, authentic, and relevant to the students we teach today. We’ll use the language of exploration to frame a new way of thinking about analysis. This process of analyzing a text is not unlike an explorer setting sail in search of a new land—a metaphor we’ll draw on throughout this book to emphasize the discovery that is possible when students analyze texts of their own choosing. Sections 2 and 3 each begin with their own introduction. Section 2 is your lesson book — your guide to helping students find and explore and write about texts they love. Section 3 promises to be dog-eared and worn by the time you’re finished with it. Each chapter is jam-packed with our absolute favorite mentors, mentor texts, and “cheat sheets” for supporting students who are analyzing texts you’ve never heard of. 

 With samples throughout the book, you will see what students of all levels and experiences can do when they’re invited into the world of authentic analysis and supported with mentor texts, targeted writing instruction, and the opportunity to write about their passions.

 This book is for teachers who want to revive the art of analytical writing in their classrooms—from teachers of middle-grade writers who are making their first foray into analytical writing to teachers of experienced twelfth-grade writers who are looking ahead to college where their professors will expect much, much more. In this book, we invite you to explore your teaching of analytical writing from a new perspective. To open your mind to the real world of analytical writing and challenge traditional notions about what students should be analyzing and how they should write. In short, we invite you to arrive where you started and know it for the first time—and to share this journey with your students and celebrate the writing that is born where passion and analysis meet.

 — Introduction

“English teachers have been waiting for this book since...well...forever. Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell breathe new life into that semi-comatose assignment—the analytic essay. They ask us to totally reimagine it, to examine how analysis works "in the wild" —on blogs, web sites, Internet reviews, and to expand the range of "texts" students can analyze (music, video games, sports teams, movies). Then drawing on their own classroom work, they show how students can use the lessons from mentor texts in their own writing. A groundbreaking and absolutely essential book.”  —Thomas Newkirk, author of Embarrassment and Minds Made for Stories

“Are you ready for a mind-bending journey into analytical writing? This book holds a new vision for student engagement grounded in current, authentic, and relevant texts. I guarantee it will upend your understanding of analysis. Full of sentence and passage studies that ignite student voice, mini-lessons that clarify the intent of organizational structures, and a deep understanding of how best to learn from a mentor text, this book will make you a better writing teacher. It’s simply brilliant.”—Penny Kittle, author of Book Love and coauthor of 180 Days

“Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell take the dusty skeleton of literary analysis and transform it into a responsive, sophisticated, magical genre of writing that we can teach our students to develop and to adore. Using this book will produce the writing that you and your students will cherish most – these are the pieces they will keep, the ones they will publish. Marchetti and O’Dell’s work brings relevance, voice, and life to a form that feels crusty and brittle with directions, templates and redundancy. This book will make your students better writers – but it will also help them to enter into the world they encounter with greater passion and insight than ever before.”—Kate Roberts, author of A Novel Approach and coauthor of Falling in Love With Close Reading

“As tour guides to a brave new world, Rebekah O’Dell and Allison Marchetti reject the well-worn path of literary analysis and guide teachers to a vibrant new analytical landscape. By reframing the idea of text as anything that has a beginning, middle, and end, O’Dell and Marchetti entertain a “bigger vision for analysis,” that helps students find their passion, explore their ideas, assert authority, and build solid structures for writing.  Divided into three sections, the book offers an inquiry into traditional analysis, a compendium of practical lessons, and an exploration of sub-genres, such as writing about movies, music, sports, and video games. In addition, this book is chock full of dynamic mentor texts and classroom-ready techniques that will free your students to explore the vistas vital to their lives.”—Liz Prather, author of Project-Based Writing