This document provides tips for writing a successful prose essay, including focusing on character relationships and how literary techniques reveal them, using direct quotes as evidence, and organizing paragraphs around character and theme rather than a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis. Essays should have a clear thesis, prove any claims made, and analyze how specific techniques contribute to meaning without making the techniques the focus.

1. Prose Essay Tips based
on 2007 Feedback
By Mrs. Scruggs

2. • View the rhetorical whole of the excerpt.
• Focus on the relationship of characters
and how the techniques create/show the
relationship.
• Include direct quotes as support—partial
quotes are preferred!
• The best essays are usually organized
around character and theme.
• Always explain how the technique
contributes to meaning.

3. • Each body paragraph should build on the
one before it.
• Upper-level essays always have a clear,
focused thesis.
• **Don’t make a claim but fail to prove it!!
• From the suggested devices list, pick one
or two as your focus in body paragraphs
for a fuller, deeper, and less superficial
analysis (but DON’T make the terms the
focus in your thesis!!)

4. • To score higher, organize your essay by
thoughts, NOT by paragraph-by-
paragraph analysis!
• Focus on WHY, NOT WHAT.
• Analysis template from 2013 chief reader
to correct oversimplification of character
analysis to use in body paragraphs:
• The (character name) is characterized
not only by (trait/quality), but also by
(another trait/quality).