1. Objective: Students will understand how to formulate a thesis and structure a critical analysis paper. 3/22/13 Do Now: Take out a sheet of paper and prepare to freewrite about the ideas you have for the Hamlet paper.

2. Freewriting For the next 10 minutes, freewrite about your ideas for the Hamlet paper. If you know your thesis and direction, explore ideas that you might include in the paper. If you haven't decided, write about the ideas that have intrigued you so far.

3. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper First, choose one of the questions above, or come up with an original angle you want to take, and then re-read the play, taking notes as you think about how you would answer the question.

4. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper Your answer to the question should help you craft your thesis statement.

5. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper Your paper should be organized around ideas that help you develop your thesis.

6. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper Then bring in an analysis of events, excerpts and literary techniques (connotative diction, metaphor, symbolism, theme, allusion, etc.) as well as ideas and excerpts from your critical articles and additional primary source document to support your ideas within each body paragraph. Think deeply about how details in your evidence work to reveal the ideas you see when you interpret the text and then make sure that you clearly explain the connections that you saw when you analyzed the text.

7. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper: Sample Outline Introduction -Set the critical context for your thesis by summarizing ideas related to your subject discussed in critical articles. -Clearly establish your thesis in a way which anticipates the points you intend to explore in the paper.

8. Body Paragraphs -Start with a sentence that connects to the previous paragraph and establishes an idea that helps develop your thesis. -Use textual evidence, including excerpts, from the play, critical articles and primary sources and explain in detail how this evidence supports the idea in your topic sentence. -End each paragraph with a sentence reinforcing the idea in a topic sentence and connecting back to ideas in your thesis. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper: Sample Outline

9. How to Begin and Organize Your Paper: Sample Outline Conclusion - Review your thesis and the main points of your argument. -End by placing the ideas in your thesis into a broader historical, psychological, social or literary context. In other words, connect your ideas to a bigger picture.

10. Quoting Shakespeare When you cite the play in your paper, use the guidelines in the packet you received today. In a nutshell, your in-text citations should include Shakespeare's last name as well as the act, scene and lines numbers for the passage you refer to or quote.

11. Wrap-Up Write your responses to the following on a sticky note: 1) What questions do you still have about the paper? 2) What do you feel would be the best use of class time for you next week? Start working on your papers! Essays are due next Friday.