Defending Interpretations of Literary Texts: The Effects of Topoi Instruction on the Literary Arguments of High School Students

Abstract

The study of literature has many important benefits for students, but research shows that students often have difficulty interpreting literary texts, are unable to read critically, and are challenged to write interpretations that go beyond basic plot summary. This article provides a theoretical interpretation of the processes by which students read, represent, and make effective analytical arguments about literary texts. To illustrate how this framework can be utilized in the classroom, we briefly discuss an instructional intervention in which high school students were taught to improve their analytical writing about literature through training in the “topoi” of literary analysis, and a cognitive writing strategy based on the self-regulated strategy development model of S. Graham and K. Harris. The implications for teaching students about the analysis of literary texts are discussed.