1. How to write a literary essay
P.E.E.
How to write a literary essay

2. Point Evidence Explanation Literary Essay
Write a literary essay in 3 easy steps.
Just remember to P.E.E.!
P.E.E. stands for:
Point
Evidence
Explanation

3. Step 1- Point Make a point. For example:
“Hope is the thing with feathers” contains an extended metaphor that compares the feeling of hope with a bird.

4. Step 2- Evidence
Give evidence from the poem which supports your point.
For example:
This can be seen in the first stanza, where the speaker describes hope as having feathers. Hope is also described as “perch[ing]” and “sing[ing]” a “tune without words”.

5. Step 3- Explanation Explain how the evidence proves your point.
For example:
Birds, of course, are the only creatures to have feathers. “Perch” and “sing” are also verbs usually used to talk about the actions of birds. It is not usual to talk about hope, an abstract noun, in this way.

6. Got it?
OK—let’s start again!

7. Step 1- Point Make a point. For example:
Another technique used in the poem is personification. Hard times in life are compared to a storm, or ‘Gale’.

8. Step 2-
Evidence
Give evidence from the poem which supports your point.
For example:
“Gale” is capitalised in the poem, as if it were someone’s name. It is also says that the storm is so “sore” (meaning angry) that it “[a]bashes” the poor little bird.

9. Step 3- Explanation Explain how the evidence proves your point.
For example:
Storms are not people. They cannot actually feel emotions like anger, and they do not deliberately harm anything.

10. One more time!

11. Step 1- Point Make a point. For example:
This poem is about how hope lives within our soul, and stays with us even in the hardest of times.

12. Step 2-
Evidence
Give evidence from the poem which supports your point.
For example:
For example, hope “never stops” singing. Not only that, it sings “sweetest” in the angry storm. The speaker has heard it in the “chillest land” and on the “strangest Sea.”

13. Step 3- Explanation Explain how the evidence proves your point.
For example:
So even when times are rough, or cold or strange, hope keeps on singing.

14. (optional concluding sentence)
And it never even demands the tiniest “crumb”, or repayment, from the speaker.

15. Your turn!

16. Write three different paragraphs. Use the following points:
Use P.E.E. to write about
“The Road Not Taken”
Write three different paragraphs. Use the following points:
“The Road Not Taken” contains an extended metaphor…
In the poem, the speaker struggles with his decision to take one path instead of the other.
The speaker is sorry s/he could not take the other path.