Writing in the Literature Classroom

Focusing Your Sense of Purpose

in an Essay on a Literary Text

Why worry about the role of writing in

the literature classroom?

Just for starters: Essays about literature tend to be really boring.

How boring?

The first paragraph of a sample student essay in a

standard writing-about-literature textbook, published

in 2000 and modified here to protect the guilty: It is

not surprising that two poems by the same author

somewhat resemble each other. What is especially

interesting about James Joyce’s “Circe” and “Soccer”

is that, although they both deal with young men who

achieve a sense of new life or growth outside of their

time spent in high school, the poems differ greatly in

what we call tone. “Circe” is bittersweet, or perhaps

even bitter and tragic, whereas “Soccer” is romantic

and in some ways comic.

Well, that was pretty boring. Not like in

the good old days back when students

knew how to write . . . The opening paragraph of a similar essay in a similar

text in 1982, similarly modified to protect the guilty: In

his play “Circe,” James Joyce uses bizarre situations

and a series of games to convey his theme to his

audience. Through many ridiculous and unexpected

situations, Joyce reveals that politics, in addition to

interrupting life’s simple and most cherished

pleasures, is an absurd, foolish, and fruitless game

played by nations. Communication is the solution that

Joyce offers, but another absurdity of life, human

impatience, hinders that, too, and the absurdity of

politics keeps emerging as the main theme.

Seems hopeless. Where can one go

for relief?

You only have to go as far as paragraph two:

In the opening scene, the audience feels the

tension of world events as the sounds of

“rioting crowds, political chants, and

campaign slogans” cover the stage. However,

all illusions of a serious discussion are

shattered when Pogo, one of the rioters,

“takes a Gameboy out of his backpack and

begins to play,” meanwhile humming the tune

of a popular TV commercial for diet soda.

But it’s your job to be bored reading

boring essays.

Not true. And besides, the boring quality

of the essays is symptomatic of larger

problems -- lack of purpose and

“conclusions about the experience.”

And one more thing: why not just start

the essay with the second paragraph,

since that was a lot more interesting?

What made it interesting?

Concrete, specific details that got the

reader of the essay immediately

engaged with the subject matter.

It wasn’t reporting on the text from a

vast distance, but showing the text up

close and personal.

What do such details have to do with

a sense of a larger purpose?

They create a sense of a purpose if --

and this is crucial to a sense of

purpose-- they get framed within the

format of a problem-solving essay.

Therefore:

Consider building an essay around an

“interpretive problem.”

So what’s an interpretive problem?

It is a specific issue in the literary text

that we might puzzle over or disagree

about.

It might appear as an explicit question

early in the essay, a problem to be

solved by that essay.

The development of its answer will

enhance the aesthetic experience of the

text by giving us new insights.

I’m glad to hear that there is at

least an answer involved here.

The “answer” is a kind of interpretive

assertion, one of many possible claims

we might make about the meaning of a

text.

An interpretive assertion that serves as

the solution to an interpretive problem is

the thesis of the essay, that essay’s

main interpretive claim.

Sounds boring. I thought the idea was

less boring.

Look for an interpretive problem at

those places in the literary text where

something feels strange to you.

Think of it as a point of weirdness. Or if

you prefer a fancier layer of critical

theory, a point of dissonance.

Is there some reference work that lists

these problems for various literary texts?

Interpretive problems emerge out of the

reading experience of individual

readers. They’re not located inside the

text (in the way that a symbol is

arguably located, for instance), but are

created through the interaction between

text and reader.

Can’t I just pick one of the study

questions at the end of the chapter?

I thought you agreed that we were trying

here to escape boredom.

But okay, let’s try an example.

Finally. I thought you’d never provide one.

If you ask, for instance, who is the narrator of

a short story like William Faulkner’s “A Rose

for Emily,” you have something that feels too

much like the study question at the end of the

chapter. It doesn’t have sufficient focus and

immediacy to be very engaging for many

readers. It’s an ambiguous issue in that story,

but it’s still operating at too global a level.

But what’s a more interesting way to

get at this issue?

Instead, look for some particular detail that seems

especially problematic, a “point of weirdness” in the

text, as it were, but a detail that might point towards

the identity of the narrator. For instance, a couple of

paragraphs before the end of the story, we find this

passage: “Already we knew that there was one room

in that region above stairs which no one had seen in

forty years, and which would have to be forced. They

waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground

before they opened it.”

What’s the big deal? I don’t see the problem.

That’s because an interpretive-problem

essay needs to begin by defining the

problem in such a detailed way that it

also becomes a problem for the reader

of that essay.

So, fine -- define.

The entire story has been told from the point of view

of the “we” narrator, yet in this paragraph, suddenly, it

shifts to the point of view of “they,” only to shift back

to “we” in the next paragraph. Why would the story do

this, when, presumably, the “we” could easily have

stayed consistent?

And an answer to this question will take you a

considerable distance towards discussing the

ambiguous identity of the narrator, although via a

much more interesting route than starting with the

question, who is that narrator?

What are the goals for all of this

(besides more interesting essays)?

More interesting essays would be

plenty.

But there’s a lot more:

– Emphasis upon process rather than on

product

– Fostering of critical-thinking skills: problem

solving, analysis, the stages in a

presentation

– Student as teacher

Student as TEACHER?!?!? But that’s

YOUR job!

In identifying an interpretive problem

and then in recreating the intellectual

journey by which that problem was

addressed and solved, the student is

dealing with material for which she is

the authority, not I.

Does this have anything at all to do

with real life as a motivator?

I don’t think we have quite enough time

here to resolve the old “art vs. life”

dichotomy.

But an interpretive-problem approach

does emphasize:

– The role that individual details contribute to

the overall meaning of complex written

texts.

I think we already knew that.

Granted. But the tricky part is how to

talk about that in such a way that we

can develop more sophisticated critical-

thinking skills and more effective ways

to talk about that relationship of the

specific to the general.

What makes you think that any of this

is going to work?

I’ve been using this as a model for

essay assignments in dozens of

literature courses over the past twenty

years. From my own experience in

reading student essays (not bored any

longer) and from my students’

experience in reporting on this

assignment, I know that it works.

Any other benefits to this interpretive-

problem stuff?

You’re a tough audience. But as a

matter of fact, there are more benefits.

An interpretive problem will help you to

define your

purpose . . .

which is to solve

the problem,

and suggest your

thesis . . .

which is a

statement of the

solution.

A well-constructed interpretive problem

will even help you to

set up an overall

arrangement

pattern for the

entire essay . . .

which is the

sequence of steps

towards the

solution of your

problem.

Keys to a good interp-problem essay:

Problematize a specific feature of the

text.

Re-create the feeling of a journey in

thinking through the problem.

Teach the reader by leading the way

through the steps in a whole interpretive

process.

And still more keys:

Keep other points of view in mind, other

solutions (and here’s where group

brainstorming and collaborative

research can be especially helpful).

Don’t “solve” the problem by jumping to

a conclusion before you’ve looked at the

evidence.

Any closing words of advice?

Don’t assume that one little set of PowerPoint slides is going to answer all of your questions. An interpretive-problem approach is going to be new and complicated for lots of people, so try it out, think about it, ask questions, and truly ask yourself:

“Is this interpretive-problem essay that I’ve written more interesting for someone to read than the standard essay on a literary text?”