Literary Analysis Essay Writing Unit: Teacher Slides and Student Essay Workbook

This Literary Analysis Essay Unit is designed to walk students step-by-step through the literary analysis essay writing process. It includes both a teacher direct instruction, interactive slide show with 40+ editable slides and a guided practice literary analysis student workbook. Both resources will guide students through the writing process. Exemplary mentor text writing samples for a literary analysis essay are included to provide you with a way to show (not just tell) how to develop their analysis and for students to understand the element of a solid literary analysis essay. Using this model to teach literary analysis will not only benefit students, but it will also make assessing much more streamlined for you as students will improve their writing during the process!

This is perfect for you if you are looking for an effective unit to teach literary analysis writing and if...

1. you struggle to get to students to move past plot summary
2. you teach AP English Literature and Composition Prose, Poetry, or Literary Argument Essays
3. you teach grades 7-12 want your students to learn how to develop sophisticated literary analysis thesis statements, use textual evidence for literary works, and provide commentary that creates a line a reasoning back to the thesis

…and you're looking for an effective, complete unit that is visually appealing and easy to implement so that you can improve your students writing and streamline the essay grading process!

Whether you're looking for a middle school or high school literary analysis writing unit, it doesn't matter because this literary analysis writing unit has you covered regardless of which grade or subject you teach!

What's inside the Literary Analysis Essay Writing Unit?

1. 40+ fully editable teacher direct instruction slides with interactive prompts that align to the student workbook
2. 10+ page student literary analysis workbook with editable text (illustrations and headings are fixed)
3. Editable exemplary mentor texts and writing samples
4. Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides versions for both resources
5. Teacher directions for ideas and directions

Here is a breakdown of the content:

What is Literary Analysis? For this task, students will investigate what literary analysis and how their topic/work/genre can be analyzed.

Find Red Flags Students will use red flag prompts to think about conflict, theme, character motivates, etc.

Examine the signal Students will connect "red flags" from their text to the authors' message.

Stake a Claim Students will learn how to take a subject from a text and turn into into a theme. Examples are included to get them started.

Examine Author's Craft Students will connect literary devices to analysis. Literary techniques included in this section are allusion, imagery, irony, hyperbole, metaphor, and personification. The teacher slides include literary examples for each.

Make Meaning Now students will examine literary elements: symbolism, structure, dialogue, point of view, mood, and tone. Examples of mood and tone are included and guiding questions are included the rest.

Craft Your Thesis Students will write a thesis statement using an example student sample for their guide. A thesis checklist is included. This is a great time for a teacher conference checkpoint.

Write Your Introduction Students will use an introduction sample to write their own introduction. Teacher slides highlight the mentor text.

PEEL Back Meaning Students will examine a sample body paragraph and write their own body paragraphs using the acronym PEEL:

• Point that explains your literary device and connect to the theme
• Evidence from your text that shows the device in action
• Explanation of how the evidence shows your theme
• Link all your evidence from the paragraph back to the theme

Write Your Conclusion Students will write a conclusion using an example student sample for their guide. This is a great time for a teacher conference checkpoint.

This literary analysis essay writing unit was designed with saving your time in mind! First, open the PowerPoint or Google Slides and edit the included text to fit the needs of your class. Then, work through the teacher slides as a class and guide students to complete the steps in the workbook that correspond to the writing step.

What you'll love:

• the hours of time you'll save prepping a literary analysis essay unit
• your students' essays when they come back to you with excellent thesis statements, textual evidence, support, and commentary in a line of reasoning
• the customizable options to get exactly what you need

What your students will love:

• a step-by-step approach so they won't feel overwhelmed with the writing process
• the workbook that guides your instruction and keeps them informed and organized
• feeling prepared and ready for the entire unit

CHECK OUT THE PREVIEW!

**Please note this unit was completely redesigned and updated on January 18, 2024.

This Literary Analysis Essay Writing Unit is part of my Writing Resources Growing Bundle. The bundle is discounted by 15%. When you purchase the bundle, you will get all future updates for free.