Diving into Analytical Writing

ETAQ will present a session on how to write an 'analytical essay' on Tuesday 28 April, at Aquinas College, Edmund Rice Drive, ASHMORE.

This event has been cancelled

In 2020, students will be required to write an 'analytical essay' in the external exam for General English. However, the term 'essay' is not used consistently across subject areas and in the 2015 Retrospective for the Writing Task, QCAA observed that:
The definition of the essay is vague, as it has become a genre required in many school subjects. Perhaps the simplest definition is that it is a piece of writing that usually expresses the author's personal point of view. (p. 64)
Given this situation, it is proposed that the 'analytical essay' be defined more specifically as an Interpretation whose purpose is to clarify the meaning(s) of a literary text (Martin and Rose 2008, Humphrey 2017).

Presenter: Lindsay Williams

The flyer is available here.

Throughout the workshop, we will explore:

• (briefly) a transferrable framework for analysing literary texts systematically
• the global structure of Interpretation-style 'analytical' essays, as well as a suggested structure for 'body' paragraphs (claim, elaboration, pattern of examples, warrant)
• key language features, including elaborating clauses, nominalisation, evaluative language, citation and quoting, and cohesion across the stages and phases of the Interpretation
• the genre of Critical Evaluation (Martin and Rose 2008, Derewianka and Jones 2011) as a way of opening a space for students wishing to make a resistant reading of the external exam texts
• a sensible scope and sequence for teaching response to texts genres (including the 'analytical essay') from Year 7 to 12. This will include a suggestion for dealing with the elephant in the room: the so-called 'literary essay'
• a suggested process and time management strategy for the exam.