How to Deepen Students’ Literary Analysis Essays

Teaching middle school students how to write high-quality literary analysis can be a huge challenge. As I’m sure you’ve found, oftentimes, students’ literary analysis barely scratches the surface and sounds more like a summary than an analysis. While it can be tough to get students to go deep and move beyond the surface, I promise you it’s not impossible. Let’s talk about how to deepen students’ literary analysis essays and how to encourage deeper thinking.

What is Literary Analysis?

In a literary analysis essay, students analyze a piece of literature and interpret elements of the text with evidence to support their point of view. Sounds easy, right?! (That’s definitely sarcasm.) I think we can both agree that literary analysis is really important because it requires students to develop critical thinking and go beyond the surface.

But we can also see why this would be challenging for middle schoolers. Around the age of 12, kids begin to move away from concrete thinking and form more complex thinking skills. So biologically, this is a new skill set for them, and it’s going to take time and practice.

Let’s chat about how to make it possible. 

Ways to Get Deeper Literary Analysis Essays From Your Students 

#1 Show Examples and Model the Process

Time and time again, I found that modeling analysis always improved students’ writing (even if it was little by little). It’s hard for students to write something if they don’t know what it sounds like or looks like. I recommend varying the types of examples you use and creating them in real-time as often as possible. 

Modeling the process in real time lets you think aloud and show your students how it looks to go through the analysis process. Good news: you don’t have to be perfect. When students see you struggle a bit, they also see how to push through those challenging moments.

#2 Get Specific with Your Prompts

The more specific a literary analysis essay prompt is, the easier it will be for students to analyze in the beginning. Really broad, open-ended questions are going to feel hard for students new to analysis because they are trying to look at all the things. Instead, get specific.

For example, ask students to imagine themselves as the author. Ask them what decisions they would’ve made differently. You can also ask them how they think those choices would have impacted the story. Or, ask students to explore the relationship between characters in the text. Ask them to analyze how those relationships affect the plot. Ask them how they have an impact on the theme of the text.

#3 Promote Discussion

Allow students to discuss their ideas with their classmates. Whether that’s an assigned partner or a group discussion. Students can use these discussions to brainstorm new ideas, and it can also help students who are struggling to hear from their friends. Sometimes hearing it from someone their age helps the information click.

When we build a community of students willing to collaborate, they can even give each other constructive feedback which can then help students refine their analyses. I always loved listening to students give each other thoughtful and constructive feedback. It showed that they understood the basics of literary analysis and that they knew how to work together to make something better.

#4 Scaffold the Writing Process

With any new skill, scaffolding is critical. I followed the same theory when teaching literary analysis, and I broke down how to write a literary analysis essay into small, bite-sized pieces. One of the best ways to scaffold is by, again, using really specific prompts!

For example, can you provide more specific examples or evidence from the text to support your analysis? How do these examples enhance your argument? What are some possible counterarguments or alternative interpretations of your analysis? The goal is to focus on analysis but in a really targeted way.

I won’t pretend that teaching middle school students to go deeper in their literary analysis essays isn’t difficult. However, you can help students get there! For a layered skill like this one, I always value progress over perfection. Students may go from writing a general summary to adding some simple analysis and that is progress! As you go through the year, continue modeling, providing specific prompts, promoting discussion, and scaffolding and you’ll see your students’ abilities progress in amazing ways.