Paragraph Organization for the Literary Analysis

1. Paragraph Organization for the Literary Analysis Assertion—Evidence—Commentary Embedding Quotations Offering Detailed Commentary

2. Topic Sentences • Each Paragraph MUST have a Topic Sentence • The Topic Sentence dictates what is in the paragraph • If the information in the paragraph does not fit with the Topic Sentence there is a problem with COHERENCE and organization

3. Topic Sentences • See Criteria C on scoring guide • You cannot develop an argument if the paragraphs fail to make sense from one to another • Plan paragraphs BEFORE you write and keep to your plan! • Create a Sentence Outline and… • Rewrite practice commentary paragraphs

4. Topic Sentence=Assertion • Each topic sentence should be a clear declarative sentence • Each topic sentence must be inclusive to the subject you need to address, or the analytical point you wish to discuss • Clear Assertions do NOT address the “reader” and use forceful verb phrases that speak directly to the literary features you intend to discuss

5. Model Assertions • Throughout the poem, religious references are made. • In this poem, Plath discusses the idea of purity and sin, and the consequences of this contrast, as she contrasts sin and hellfire with purity and paradise. • The punishment of hell is further emphasized in these nine stanzas where Plath employs visual imagery to depict the brutal and ghastly nature of punishment in hell.

6. Supporting Details Within Paragraphs=Evidence • Example: “In the first stanza, the speaker mentions the “tongues of hell”, and then “Cerebus” wheezing at the gates of hell—here the poet paints an image of the grave, sinister, and frightening moment when approaching hell and facing the consequences of one’s sins. • NB: please note the difference between the “speaker” and the “poet”!

7. Supporting Details Within Paragraphs=Evidence • Example: The word “sin” is constantly repeated in these stanzas, as seen in the third stanza and the ninth: “The sin. The sin.” • Note the use of the semicolon to “embed” the quotation.

8. From Evidence to Your Commentary • Back to the example: The word “sin” is constantly repeated in these stanzas, as seen in the third stanza and the ninth: “The sin. The sin.” Here the use of punctuation and repetition emphasize the definitive and grave result and punishment of sin; this also emphasizes the seriousness of committing sin—something as blunt as a knife, cutting off your chances of reaching heaven.

9. Assertion and Evidence • Back to the Assertion: The punishment of hell is further emphasized in these nine stanzas where Plath employs visual imagery to depict the brutal and ghastly nature of punishment in hell. Add Evidence—”Incapable of licking clean the aguey tendon, the sin, the sin” implies that no one can help you erase your sins and save you from hell; the sin will stain you forever, it “will not rise” and will linger in your life affecting your future as an “anchor in the wheel”

10. Leads to Commentary • Assertion moves to Evidence which moves then to Commentary or Explanation: • Assertion: Throughout the poem, religious references are made. • Evidence: Where Plath repeats and mentions “hell”, fires, smoke, etc., these words and imagery of burning and pain are consistent with the title. Furthermore, a range of emotions are also portrayed, such as “love”, “fright”, “cries”.

11. Assertion-Evidence-Commentary • Commentary: The emotions evoked are strong and overwhelming like the heat from a fever, or facing the fires in hell, or from confronting the sins of one’s daily life. • PLEASE NOTE: You need to fully explain the connection between your assertion and the evidence you present. Is the “commentary” provided above enough in terms of explaining the writer’s claim?

12. Model Commentary • The examples used in the previous slides were written by a grade 12 student here at Qatar Academy and were taken from a HL assessment on Sylvia Plath’s poem “Fever 103°”. It should serve only as a student sample in that it isn’t perfect, and demonstrates only the beginning of this particular student’s progress as a writer of commentaries.

13. Professional Model Sylvia Plath begins her poem “Fever 103°” with a one-word question: “Pure?” as if from the middle of an unheard conversation. She asks impatiently, “What does it mean?” and then plunges in, conjuring up the heat of a high fever: The tongues of hell Are dull, dull as the triple

14. Profession Model Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable Of licking clean The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin. The tinder cries. The indelible smell Of a snuffed candle!

15. Professional Model In a few bold strokes, Plath uses repetition’s incantatory effect to undercut our assumptions about purity. When she writes “tongues of hell,” we think of the shapes of flames and purification by fire. Instead, Plath gives us dog slobber: “dull, dull as the triple//Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus.” Her emphatic twist on the Cerberus myth render the terrifying three-headed hound of hell into a

16. Professional Model plainly pathetic old dog who’s “wheezing” and sluggish, “Incapable/Of licking clean//The aguey tendon.” (I must pause here, at “aguey” to admire how the old-fashioned word onomatopoetically expressed the pulled-taffy feeling of a high fever.) When Plath repeats “the sin, the sin,” it conjures all kinds, exponentially multiplying sin itself. The repetition amplifies what comes

17. Professional Model after it. “Sin” morphs sonically into “tinder,” which, with its soft “ind” sound, both recalls “tendon” and prefigures “indelible.” The pleasure of rhyme heightens the dead black fiery-waxy scent and sonic satisfaction of “a snuffed candle.” It offers a meager sort of exhausted relief after the terror of crying tinder. If Plath is creating the sense of a fever burning away the soul’s impurities, then she is

18. Professional Model also creating the sense of a soul so completely composed of impurities that this fever threatens to burn it entirely out. --by Kary Wayson, poet Excerpt from her article “Sylvia Plath: “Fever 103°” published at PoetryFoundation.org

19. Reflection • Note the following: • Direct and arresting introduction • Wayson’s use of verbs, and verb phrases • Dynamic use of diction (or her use of descriptive words) • Patterns of giving textual evidence and then offering immediate discussion