Writing Literary Research Papers guides your students step by step through the process of creating an in-depth literary analysis. Using quotations and other evidence from a variety of sources, students carefully analyze one or more works of literature, creating new insights about the work and connecting it to the world at large. Instructions, activities, examples, interactives, and downloads help students learn new skills for literary research. You can also present this unit right from your interactive whiteboard.
First students warm up by evaluating the reliability of different sources in their everyday lives. Then they read a sample research paper based upon the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. After responding to the sample research paper, students work step by step through the process of researching and writing their own papers.
- Prewriting activities help students select a literary topic, find reliable sources, review them, and gather and organize information.
- Writing activities help students write a beginning that grabs the reader's interest and provides the thesis for the analysis. The middle paragraphs develop main points that support the thesis, using quotations and other evidence from the literature. The ending paragraph thoughtfully wraps up the research paper, with a separate works-cited page.
- Revising activities help students elaborate on ideas using different types of evidence. Students also get a peer review and use a checklist to improve their research papers.
- Editing activities help students use correct documentation style and overall format for Modern Language Association (MLA) research papers. They also improve their punctuation, capitalization, spelling, usage, and grammar. An editing checklist guides students in correcting common errors.
- Publishing activities help students create a clean final copy of their research papers and reflect on what they have learned.