The Analytical Essay and the Tempting Summary
On the free-response analytical essay, a student is given a prompt asking how a narrator's unreliability shapes the reader's understanding of a central conflict in a specified work. The student's draft opens with three sentences summarizing the plot, then asserts 'the narrator is unreliable,' then quotes one line and concludes 'this shows the theme.' The essay is 400 words; the rubric rewards textual evidence and analysis of technique. The student has read the work but has not identified a specific technique beyond 'unreliable narrator.' The teacher must give feedback that moves the score up one band.
1. Diagnose why the draft stalls below the top band, using rubric language rather than 'it's too summary.'
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The draft earns credit for identifying a feature (unreliability) but not for analyzing how technique produces meaning. Plot summary consumes the opening without advancing an argument. The single quotation is dropped in, not analyzed-there is no explanation of how the line signals unreliability (e.g., contradiction with an earlier claim, hedged diction, selective omission). 'This shows the theme' asserts a link rather than demonstrating it. The top band requires sustained analysis of literary devices and their effect on the reader's construction of meaning, supported by well-chosen evidence. The draft has evidence but not analysis of it.
2. Give two concrete revisions that raise the band without rewriting the essay for the student.
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(1) Convert summary into claim: replace the three plot sentences with a thesis naming the technique and its effect, e.g., 'The narrator's selective omission of the brother's account forces the reader to fill gaps, making the conflict feel unresolved.' (2) Analyze, don't drop, the quotation: after the quoted line, add two sentences explaining what the diction or omission reveals and how it changes the reader's trust. Both moves keep the student's own reading but supply the analytical how the rubric demands. Note that merely adding more quotations would not raise the band-quantity of evidence without analysis is the same flaw at greater length.