Structure

[letsride]

could anybody give me advice on the structure of the essay in lit? I did 1,2 vce eng and i got used to the whole intro, tedq, conc etc and I feel like my essay's portray this. My lit teacher tells me to "dive in" and get straight into exploring the concepts/themes and that you don't even need an intro, albiet i believe you do :/

any help would do, past lit students maybe ? what worked for you?

thanks

[saaaaaam]

By essay do you mean passage analysis/close reading/interpretation?

I've also been told to use the 'dive in' method, I've often found that starting with a quote makes it easier. The hard thing with writing these is that there is no real structure. Unfortunately the passages you are given will determine what you write which means the structure can be different every time.

As far as introductions and conclusions go, I find that they work sometimes are others they don't. If I'm ever going to use an introduction it's more likely to be when writing about poetry.

Sometimes I wish VCAA would just give us a few full examples to look at.

[schmalex]

My teacher told us to write it like a text response type thing, just without a question. So have one argued reading, and talk about tha argued reading, making reference to the passages in the introduction and argue it point by point in the body paragraphs.

[EvangelionZeta]

Basically, you just want to make sure you cover all the criterion (incorporating all the passages, analysing the language and providing interpretation).  Apart from that, it's pretty much up to you, but don't waste any time with "fluff" (there's no need for an introduction like with English, for instance).

[letsride]

so let's say your three passages cover themes such as imagination vs reality, Book/Author Relationship, Love etc, would you start your essay with something that dives straight as in, such as "The writer's preoccupation with.../It is misleading to focus so narrowly on/ Passage one portrays.... etc

[EvangelionZeta]

Pretty much.  Sample first paragraph from one of my essays:

Passage One centralizes the nature of the metaphysical, illuminating the utter incomprehensibility which the Ghost represents.  Broken dialogue such as “Speak of it – Stay, and Speak!” and “’Tis here!  ‘Tis here!  ‘Tis gone!” is emblematic of confusion, relating to the audience the spiritual desolation of Horatio and the soldiers in their unnatural encounter with the specter of Old Hamlet.  Compounding this with language of the extraordinary, such as “majestical” and “invulnerable”, Shakespeare is essentially constructing the very image of an undecipherable chaos.  As will be further delineated in Hamlet’s more intimate encounter with the Ghost in Passage Three, the world of Hamlet is hence one concerned with elements beyond human understanding, allowing the audience to perceive that with an introduction to the spiritual often comes the arrival of the indecipherable. 

[spaciiey]

If you *must* have an introduction, maybe make it one sentence long. i always have an introduction when i write on Hedda Gabler, and always start the same way (or thereabouts): "Ibsen's play, Hedda Gabler, focuses upon the plight of main character Hedda, a housewife who feels trapped in a life she believes she cannot escape from. Part of the reason she feels so trapped is because of .... and we see this in Passage one/two/three where.... etc." Though if I am writing on Harwood's poetry, I might start by saying something like "Harwoods poetry is at times laced with <theme>, and this is evident in her poem <poem name>..." and just keep analysing from there. Then when I'm concluding, it'll be something like 'finally, in passage blah blah we see blah blah and so on and so forth' and then just leave it.