ELA Academy is no longer an active venture, but it’s being left up in case anyone finds these resources helpful.
Analysis is the act of breaking something complex into smaller parts so that you can understand it better. So obviously, it’s a really broad term. On this page you’ll find both literary and rhetorical analysis, which in turn encompass all sorts of things like logical fallacies, methods of persuasion, figurative language, connotation, literary criticism, and more. (Existing blog posts are hotlinked; italicized topics were planned but may or may not be produced now that ELA Academy is inactive.)
Literary Analysis
SAQ Basics #2: Characterization
Overview of Literary Elements (plot, setting, protagonist, antagonist, narrator, dialogue, conflict, mood, theme)
Plot (inciting moment, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution)
Plot “Time Travel”: Foreshadowing, Flashback, and Flashforward
Intro to the Hero’s Journey
Hero’s Journey: Common Archetypes
Figurative Language (metaphor, extended metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy, synecdoche)
Intro to Literary Analysis
Structure of a Literary Analysis Essay
Intro to Literary Criticism (New Criticism, psychoanalytic, structuralism, post-structuralism, feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, New Historicism, cultural studies)
Intro to Utopian Studies (utopia, eutopia, dystopia, anti-utopia)
Rhetorical Analysis
Intro to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Analysis
Intro to Rhetorical Appeals: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
Analyzing Rhetorical Appeals in Antony’s Funeral Oration (Julius Caesar)
Rhetorical Analysis: SOAPSTone
Rhetorical Devices: Sound Devices (alliteration, rhyme, consonance)
Rhetorical Devices: Repetition (parallelism, anaphora, chiasmus, antithesis, epistrophe, antimetabole, alliosis, epanalepsis, anadiplosis, symploce)
Rhetorical Devices: Juxtaposition
Rhetorical Devices: Comparison (allusion, analogy)
Rhetorical Devices: Examples (anecdote, exemplification, enumeratio
Rhetorical Devices: Specialty Sentences (anastrophe, asyndeton, polysyndeton, loose sentence, periodic sentence, balanced sentence)
Intro to (Informal) Logical Fallacies
Logical Fallacies in The Crucible
Fallacies: Ad Hominem & Poisoning the Well
Fallacies: Straw Man
Fallacies: Post Hoc (Ergo Propter Hoc)
Fallacies: Red Herring
Fallacies: Hasty Generalization
Fallacies: False Alternative
Fallacies: Single Cause
Fallacies: Cherry-Picking
Fallacies: Bandwagon
Fallacies: Appeal to Emotion