For any level English composition courses in which literature is introduced. This text provides comprehensive discussions and sample papers for students who need to write about the elements of literature. Designed to help students read, study, think, plan, draft, and write, all chapters contain discussions of important literary subjects, such as character, setting, and symbolism.

Table of Contents:
 1. Preliminary: The Process of Reading, Responding to, and Writing About Literature.  2. Writing About a Close-Reading: Analyzing Entire Short Poems or Selected Passages from Prose Fiction and Longer Poems.  3. Writing About Character: The People in Literature.  4. Writing About Point of View: The Position or Stance of the Work's Narrator or Speaker.  5. Writing About Plot and Structure: The Development and Organization of Narratives and Drama.  6. Writing About Setting: The Background of Place, Objects, and Culture in Literature.  7. Writing About an Idea or a Theme: The Meanings and the Messages in Literature.  8. Writing About Metaphors and Similes: A Source of Depth and Range in Literature.  9. Writing About Symbolism and Allusions: Windows to a Wide Expanse of Meaning. 10. Writing Essays of Comparison-Contrast and Extended Comparison-Contrast: Learning by Seeing Literary Works Together. Appendix A: Critical Approaches Important in the Study of Literature. Appendix B: Writing Examinations on Literature. Appendix C: The Use of References and Tenses in Writing About Literature. Appendix D: A Brief Anthology of Works Used for Demonstrative Essays and References.   Stories: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce. The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin. The Three Strangers, Thomas Hardy. Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Necklace, (in Chapter 1), Guy de Maupassant. First Confession, Frank O'Connor. The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe. Poems: Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold. The Tyger, William Blake. Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Desert Places, Robert Frost. Channel Firing, Thomas Hardy. The Man He Killed, Thomas Hardy. Negro, Langston Hughes. Bright Star, John Keats. On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer, (in Chapter 9), John Keats. Rhine Boat Trip, Irving Layton. Patterns, Amy Lowell. Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen. Ballad of Birmingham, Dudley Randall. Echo, Christina Rossetti. Sonnet 30, (in Chapter 9), William Shakespeare. Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare. The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats. The Boxes, Shelly Wagner. Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth. Plays: The Bear: A Joke in One Act, Anton Chekhov. Trifles, Susan Glaspell. A Glossary of Important Literary Terms.Index of Authors, Directors, First Lines of Poetry, Titles, and Topics.