From Ideas to Claims in Literary Analysis

Literature provokes thought. It animates discussion. It brings people into conversations that require us to discern what we mean and defend what we think.

Our writing about literature should have the same effect. This is why we need to move from the informal and somewhat aimless nature of "response" to the incisive and decisive mode of a persuasive claim. In short, students of literature need to learn how to evolve their responses to literature into compelling thesis statements.

Here's how:

1. Review your recent writing, notes, discussions, etc. to find topics and issues that have intrigued you.
2. Review your recent reading-- perhaps looking at passages you have annotated or notes you made in the margins. What are the ideas, characters, or issues that most interested you?
3. Review others' recent posts or comments to see which of these elicited from you interest or a desire to respond.
4. Pose some questions to yourself in private document, or even better, do so publicly (as I modeled in this post posing questions about fiction / nonfiction).
5. Transform questions into provisional claims. Try out different categories of claims in order to see which type might fit best to your topic and interests. 
6. Circulate your working thesis statements (or "tweethis"). I recommend doing this over your social media as well as in person. Invite others to comment on a claim that you are working on. (Here's a successful example). One way to do this can be to recast your claim as a question to which you then invite responses within a blog post, Facebook post, etc.
7. Revise your claim after getting feedback.