Literary analysis through writing: strategies and instruction for success in high school English

This teacher action research examined 11th grade high school students and\ud strategies that support their literary analysis. The study focused upon scaffolded\ud instruction and incorporated frequent writing practice in the form of one page writing\ud responses. Students were also shown how to analyze literature using the acronym of\ud DIPSS-diction, imagery, point of view, syntax, and structure. During the first unit\ud of instruction, students were taught how to analyze difficult pieces of literature and\ud wrote five writing responses. In the second unit of instruction, they wrote five\ud writing responses as well; however, at this time, the students were taught the\ud academic vocabulary of literary analysis and shown how to use the acronym of\ud DIPSS when analyzing text and composing their writing responses. One hundred and\ud six students' writing responses were collected, scored using a rubric, and analyzed.\ud Analysis of the data from the rubric scoring showed an improvement in student\ud writing from the first to the second unit for all groups analyzed. Students' reflective\ud journals showed evidence of validation for the strategies used in the study and the\ud comments in these journals illustrated that they believed their writing improved as a\ud result of the study. The students also believed that frequent writing and the DIPSS\ud strategy helped improve their writing. Further research is needed to determine if\ud student writing would continue to improve, and if so, how much improvement would\ud occur over a longer period of time.\ud KEY WORDS: scaffolded instruction, writing, high school English, literary analysi