Writing About Literature: A Guide for the Student Critic

by Garrett-Petts, W. F.

• ISBN13: 9781551112541
• ISBN10: 155111254X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Broadview Pr

Summary

Writing About Literature is the first undergraduate text to integrate recent genre theory and a "writing in the disciplines" approach to the teaching of critical writing. While encouraging students to develop and value their own interpretations, the text helps undergraduates understand the rhetorical and institutional conventions of critical writing. A cross between a rhetoric and a casebook, Writing About Literature provides clear, practical advice and accessible models for writing critical essays on literature-on prose fiction in particular. This book offers students an insider's guide to the language, issues, approaches, styles, assumptions, and traditions that inform the writing of successful critical essays.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	1	(2)
Preface to the Instructor	3	(2)
Initiating Students into Literary Study	5	(1)
A Brief History of English Studies	6	(7)
This Book's Form and Philosophy	9	(4)
Preface to the Student: An Introduction to the Critical Conversation	13	(116)
What Is Academic Discourse?	13	(2)
A Method for Learning Academic Discourse	15	(1)
How to Use This Book	16	(3)
Getting Started: From Personal Response to Field Stance	19	(20)
Overview	19	(1)
Writing Is Rhetorical	19	(1)
Documenting Your Personal Response	20	(1)
How To Use Your Personal Response	21	(1)
Field Notes from Critical Theory and Psycholinguistics: ``How We Read''	22	(1)
Becoming a Literacy Researcher	23	(1)
New Contexts for Reading and Writing	24	(2)
The Social Stance	24	(1)
The Institutional Stance	24	(1)
The Textual Stance	25	(1)
Field Notes from Composition Studies: The Five-Paragraph Theme	26	(2)
The Field Stance	27	(1)
Summary: Why It Is So Important to Become Aware of All Four Stances	28	(1)
Field Notes from Linguistics: The Effect of Context on Reading	29	(1)
An Interview with a Literary Critic	30	(8)
Exercises	38	(1)
Reading and Responding to Stephen Crane's The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky''	39	(18)
Overview	39	(1)
``The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,'' by Stephen Crane (as first published in 1898)	40	(8)
Response Notes	48	(1)
The Critical Conversation	48	(1)
Field Notes from Literary Criticism: How Readers Have Responded to Crane's ``The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky''	49	(4)
``Fielding'' Some Questions	53	(2)
Exercises	55	(2)
Writing the Critical Essay: Form and the Critical Process	57	(30)
Overview	57	(1)
Form	57	(2)
Field Notes from the Visual Arts: ``Visual Mapping''	59	(4)
Exercises	63	(1)
How to Move from an ``F'' to an ``A'': Modelling the Process	64	(1)
Writing and Rewriting	64	(3)
Commentary	67	(2)
The Six Common Places of Literary Criticism	69	(6)
Contemptus Mundi and Complexity	70	(1)
Appearance/Reality	71	(1)
Everywhereness	72	(1)
Paradigm	73	(1)
Paradox	74	(1)
Critical Approaches	75	(10)
New Criticism and Deconstruction	77	(3)
Reader-Response Criticism	80	(2)
Cultural Criticism	82	(3)
Finding a Place for Your Interpretation in the Critical Conversation	85	(1)
Exercises	86	(1)
Model Essays	87	(36)
Student Essays	87	(12)
Michelle Demers	87	(4)
Ryan Miller	91	(2)
Lydia Marston	93	(6)
Professional Essays	99	(21)
Alice Farley	99	(4)
Katherine Sutherland	103	(7)
Harold H. Kolb, Jr.	110	(10)
Exercises	120	(3)
Some Final Words on Writing about Literature	123	(6)
Four Critics Speak on Their Personal Approaches to Writing	123	(6)
Alice Farley	123	(2)
Katherine Sutherland	125	(1)
Michael Jarrett	126	(2)
Helen Gilbert	128	(1)
Appendix: Language Use in English Studies	129	(4)
Resources for Further Study	133	(4)
Works Cited in Writing About Literature	137	(2)
Index	139