| Six normally achieving high school students were taught a planning and writing strategy to help them improve their analytical writing about literary texts. All students were provided instruction in genre-specific goals that were imbedded in explicit and systematic writing instruction. These goals included instruction in the critical standards of literary criticism, including instruction in one of two "topoi" of literary criticism. (Fahnestock & Secor, 1991) Three students were given instruction in the ubiquity topos, focused on identifying patterns of imagery, diction, or symbolism that are ubiquitous in a piece of writing. The other three students were given instruction in the paradox topos, focused on identifying contradictory patterns in text that are then reconciled by the reader/writer.;Research shows that expert writers set clear and specific goals (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Graham & Harris, 1988), and that the provision of genre-specific goals can lead to improvements in the argumentative writing of all students (Harris & Graham, 1999; Page-Voth & Graham, 1999). The purpose of this dissertation is to show how teaching high school students a planning strategy that includes instruction in the critical standards of literary criticism and the topoi of literary criticism helps students to read literary passages and produce written argumentative interpretations of literature that are more developed, of higher quality, and better adhere to the standards of literary analysis and interpretation than those produced before instruction. |
