Finding meaning . . .From Reading to Writing After reading a powerful work of literature like Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” or Stephen Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism,” you may be filled with questions about its meaning.

Literary Interpretation

Finding meaning . . .Writing a literary interpretation is a good way to explore your own ideas about the meaning of a literary work and to analyze the elements in the work that communicate the meaning.

Literary Interpretation

B a s i c s i n a B o x

Literary Interpretation at a Glance

RUBRIC Standards for Writing

A successful literary interpretation should

• clearly identify the title and author of the literary work

• give a clearly stated interpretation at or near the beginning of the essay

• present evidence and quotations from the text to support the interpretation

• take into account other interpretations and contradictory evidence

Introduces the literary work and includes a clear thesis statement that summarizes

the interpretation

Introduction

Summarizes the interpretationConclusion

1 Prewriting

Begin by choosing a work of literature to

write about. You might select a work that

you especially liked or one that you had

problems with in some way.

Writing Your Literary Interpretation

Planning Your Literary Interpretation

1. Develop an interpretation. Read the story more

than once, taking notes. Freewrite about the literary

elements in the work. What are the main character’s

most significant thoughts or actions? What is the

central conflict? What is the theme? Write your

interpretation of the story as a tentative thesis

statement.

Planning Your Literary Interpretation

2. Gather evidence to support your interpretation. Use a chart to list significant passages from the text and how they support your interpretation.

3. Test your interpretation. Does the evidence support your interpretation? What contradictory evidence did you find? How can you revise your interpretation to account for more of the evidence?

Evidence from the text How it supports interpretation

If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn’t thinking.

General George S. Patton, U.S. Army

If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn’t thinking.

General George S. Patton, U.S. Army

Writing Your Literary Interpretation2 Drafting

Writing Your Literary Interpretation2 Drafting

Try out your interpretation by writing down

your ideas. A good way to start is to try to

get through an entire first draft without

stopping. You can revise form and style

later. Eventually, you should organize your

writing into the following parts:

Writing Your Literary Interpretation2 Drafting

Introduction—identifies the author and title of the work and briefly states the main point of the interpretation

Body—presents evidence from the text to support the interpretation

Conclusion—restates the interpretation and summarizes the evidence

Writing Your Literary Interpretation3 Revising

TARGET SKILL

CONCLUSIONSA good conclusion in literary interpretations summarizes what was presented in the body of the paper, does not introduce anything new, and leaves the reader with a sense of closure and something to think about.

Writing Your Literary Interpretation4 Editing and Proofreading

TARGET SKILL

VERB TENSEWhen writing about a literary work, use the present tense (called the historical present); that is, write about a past action as if it were happening now. However, keep the verbs in quotations in the tense in which they were written.