Scaffolding Author’s Craft for Deeper Literary Analysis

Literary analysis isn’t a simple skill (but you already know that). In order for students to analyze, they have to go beyond just understanding diction and figurative language. They have to learn how to see the meaning and intention behind them. For a while, I’d jump right into literary analysis and feel a bit baffled and disappointed when my students’ essays fell flat. When I took the time to be intentional about teaching author’s craft, however, I saw my students’ analysis deepen. I want to share exactly how you can scaffold author’s craft for students, so you can see the same impact in your students’ essays.

How to Scaffold Author’s Craft for Deeper Literary Analysis Essays

You’ve seen the struggle in your own classroom: essays that read like summaries, analysis that lacks depth, and “understanding” that rarely goes beyond memorization. I want to show you how you can scaffold author’s craft for your students, so they can write deeper, more thoughtful literary analysis essays.

Each of the lessons I’m sharing is also included in my Author’s Craft Unit. This unit contains six ready-to-go lessons with teaching slides, daily lesson plans, student notebook pages, writing prompts, and more.

Lesson One: Introduce Author’s Craft

What is author’s craft? That’s what you’re covering in this first lesson. Essentially, author’s craft is the techniques an author uses to convey a story. And there are a lot of techniques, which makes it a challenge to teach. These techniques include figurative language, imagery, text structure, genre, dialogue, and more. 

First, I like to lay out the foundation. During a mini-lesson, I cover the types of author’s craft along with a definition and example. Students can take notes in their interactive notebooks or use the quick reference pages (both of these are included in the Author’s Craft Unit). They’ll use these notes in the upcoming lessons to keep their memory fresh and help them apply what they learned.

Lesson Two: Practice Author’s Craft

Now it’s time to start applying the concepts. You can do this lesson the next day, or if you have a longer unit, feel free to spread the lessons out. In lesson two, I have students rotate through stations. In each station, they’ll read a short text or a poem and identify examples of the craft technique. Then, they’ll explain the purpose of the craft and how it affects the tone and mood. 

This is a good time to start with writing conferences. Students aren’t writing yet, but you’ll see stronger essays when you check in on students’ understanding along the way.

Lessons Three & Four: Identify Craft Moves

Now you’ll take it a step further (AKA scaffolding 😉). In lesson three, give students two short texts to annotate for craft techniques and explain how the author’s choices influence the story’s tone and theme. In lesson four, they’ll get an additional text and compare how different authors use similar craft elements.

These lessons serve a really important purpose: helping students understand that techniques, like metaphors, can be used in a multitude of ways and have several different effects on writing. It also gives students several examples of author’s craft in action, which will help when they begin writing their literary analysis essays. (PS. I’ve included the passages for these two lessons inside the Author’s Craft Unit.)

Lesson Five: Analysis Through Writing

Time to take everything students have been learning and put it into practice with a literary analysis essay. In this lesson, you’ll walk through the steps to writing a literary analysis essay, along with examples to model what students are working toward. Then, have students actually write a short essay where they connect author’s craft in a text to meaning and tone.

Students can analyze one of the passages you used in an earlier lesson, a new passage, or a text you’ve been reading in class. It’s easy to get caught in the perfection of writing with this lesson, but focus on getting students to write a really quality analysis. You can address grammar and flow in a follow-up lesson on editing and revising.

This lesson can be expanded quite a bit. If you’re using the Author’s Craft Unit to lead into a literary analysis essay, lesson five would be the start of your literary analysis unit. This way, you can dig deep into essay writing, rather than squeezing it all into one lesson. I have a complete middle school Literary Analysis Unit, if you need support with your writing lessons.

Lesson Six: Author’s Craft One-Pager

Wrap up your deep-dive of author’s craft with a one-pager project. In this, students will create a visual one-pager that combines quotes, analysis, and illustrations to showcase their understanding of author’s craft. Students can do this on paper or using digital tools like Canva and PowerPoint. I like to assign each student a different craft technique. They will then display their one-pagers in your classroom for students to reference.

Author’s Craft Unit

Want to use these lessons in your classroom? Grab the done-for-you Author’s Craft Unit. It includes six lessons that scaffold author’s craft, so students move from a basic understanding to deep analysis. The unit includes daily lesson plans, teacher slides, a one-pager project template, reference pages, and more. It’s also differentiated for 5th-6th and 7th-8th grades, so you can scaffold and challenge students when needed.