Your analytical essay will focus on Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, of course—not The Outsiders. Before you start writing your essay, you’ll need to decide what idea, or claim, you will support, using details from the novel as evidence. Click each step below to learn about a process you might use to create your claim statement.
Review any questions or notes that you’ve already written about Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, including all of your journal entries. What themes or messages do you think were developed in the novel? What did you think the novel was saying about life, or people, or society?
Since an analytical essay is also an argumentative essay, its purpose is to persuade. Choose an idea that you believe you can support well enough to persuade an audience to agree with you. It should also be an idea that readers might disagree about. In other words, some readers will need to be convinced.
Your teacher will definitely be part of the audience for your essay. However, other readers of the novel may read it as well, including some of your classmates. As you begin writing your analysis, keep in mind how different people might think about the theme you plan to discuss. Knowing their thoughts and feelings about the topic can help you better persuade them to see things your way.
Open a new word processing file, and write a claim statement that includes your opinion about a central theme in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Save the file in the same folder where you keep your journal entries for this course, using the file name Literary Analysis Draft.
Quick Tip!
Once you have written a claim statement, ask yourself these two questions:
- According to this claim statement, what theme or idea will be discussed in the essay?
- Based on the claim statement, what position am I taking—what will I need to prove?
Consider asking someone else to read your claim statement and answer these two questions about it. If you or they have trouble answering either of these questions, revise your claim statement to make each point clearer.
