Literary analysis might sound scary or difficult but it actually isn't when breaking it down into smaller parts. Which is what we are going to do. We are going to break down the literary analysis into four basic parts and take a look at what should be included in the four points.

1. Plot

The plot is basically the story itself, the events that occur and how they are organised. Are the events put into a chronological order or not? Explain what happens in the novel, film, you name it and in what order the events happen.

2. Characterisation

Characterisation might be e bit more difficult than plot since characters can be difficult to understand fully. The basic things included in characterisation is of course the characters and how they are represented, i.e what do they look like? What are their personality? You could also say, how the characters are portrayed.

3. Setting

Setting is built up of two different parts, (1) the location, where does the story take place? and (2) time, when does it take place? To identify the setting you should look after descriptive language, meaning, descriptions how is the environment surrounding the characters described? Is it described at all?

4. Themes

Themes is the most difficult part of literature analysis since literary work seldom has only one theme, they often contain several themes and it is not always easy to spot the themes. A theme is basically the main subject or message of a literary work. Lets use an example, Harry Potter, which I asume most of you are familiar with has multiple themes throughout the series, but the main ones are love, friendship, evil vs. good and so forth. 

When analysing literature try to use these four basic points and your analysis will be great, but keep in mind not all novels has all of these four points included. Sometimes the setting isn't described at all and then you omit that part, sometimes a novel might not have any characters then you omit that part. In order of making students' lives miserable a literary work ALWAYS has a theme.

Instead of studying I spent the day shopping for Christmas gifts and a little something to myself. I also baked a gingerbread cake since I ate the last saffron bun a few days ago and I crawed something sweet and didn't want to buy something in the store. Well the rest of the day I will spend both working and studying.

I work as a translator and I have a job to finish until Monday, it's not long only a 1000 words but still it has to be done and then I need to finish Burnt Shadows. The novel is amazing and I can really see the potential it has. I'm pretty sure I will use that novel in my exam for this course but I still have two more novels to read before I decide. Well, at least one since the last one we wont be discussing it until January and yeah, that's  a bit late since the exams are on the 13th of January and I need to prepare a presentation and write a few lesson plans.

Well, that's it guys, I have to get back to my books and keep reading and finish my job. See you later!

I've been out for a while studying and writing exams. Unfortunately the blog is not a priority at the moment since I have a lot to do at uni. To some good news, I will be reading a lot of novels for the next coupple of weeks, it's included in the literature didactics course I'm takeing, so I will write a bit about those.

First one out is The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins. Personally I really like the trilogy and the first book is my favourite. This novel is really easy to adapt and use in the classroom since there are a lot to discuss and it's easy to connect to todays society as well. You can talk about democracy, human rights, utopia/ dystopia and so forth. There are several different themes in the novel suited for discussion in the classroom with many connections to the syllabus for English 5, 6 and 7. The novel itself isn't hard to understand and the langauge is fairly easy, therefore I believe it can be used from English 5. The novel might also appeal both to the boys and the girls in the class since there are characters of both genders to relate to in different ways and showing the students there are novels that aren't girly even though the main character, Katniss, is a girl.

Since The Hunger Games has been made into a film, you cna use that as well as the novel. First reading the novel and then watching the whole film or only excerpts of the film to highlight different aspects that you want to discuss. This will make it more interesting for the students and maybe even easier for them to connect everything togheter since everyone isn't good readers and everyone won't understand everything that happens between the lines in the novel. Therefore, using the film to highlight important aspects might be beneficial. As a teacher you just have to be sure to only use excerpts that are between 3-to-5 minutes long in order of compling with the copyright laws.

I write about Fifty Shades Darker the other day and now I have finished the last book in the trilogy. I'm actually surprised by the turn the novel took after the first novel. It's less about the sex and more about what is happening around the characters and the story is actually exciting. I haven't yet decided if I like the novels or not partly because of the similarity to Twilight and it is really difficult to separate the two when you read because there are so many events in the novel that are almost exact the same. Even how the characters are described is almost identical to Bella and Edward. How Edward is the most beutiful and perfect person in the world and Christian is described in the same way and Ana is described to be normal, mediocre and there is nothing special about her apperance.

The turn the novel takes in this novel is surprising, you kind of know in one way that Ana will get pregnant eventually, you get those feelings already in the second novel but you still know it will happen and Christian will freak. It's kind of their thing something happens and Christan freaks out and then they have make up sex. It's the same thing over and over again they always figure it out and have sex. Yes, the novel is an erotic novel but it would be nice with some change also, the story is very predictable even though the events are different the way they handle these events are the same and of course it escaletes in one way.

I don't know if I would call the book series Fifty Shades controversial or not, but now I have read the second book in the thrilogy and I'm actually surprised about the turn in the novels. I read Fifty Shades in upper secondary school for a school assignment and bought all three books but after I read the first one I didn't tuch the others until know. I don't know why I didn't read the other ones, propably because of how sex was portrayed in the first and I felt maybe a bit ashamed for reading it. But now I have read the second one and well there is still a lot of hot sex described in the novel but the story really moves forward in an unexpected way.

I can't help but to notice all the similarities with Twilight, Ana and Christian's behaviour is so much like Bella's and Edward's in Twilight, which at times can be a bit disturbing I think. One main event I believe is really similar is the reaction both of them have when Ana leaves Christian in the end of the first novel. Ana kind of starves herself in the same way Bella does in Twilight and Christan claims he hasn't been able to think about something else but her very much like Edward in Twilight. Another similarity is when Christan disapears and Ana doesn't know if he is alive or not, her feelings is a lot like Bella's in the second book Full Moon where she doesn't know if she will be in time to save Edward or not. 

I wouldn't maybe use this particular novel in the classroom, mainly because of the sex scenes described but well I read it in school and analysed it from a feministic perspective and well for that this novel works really well. I believe that if teachers are to use this novel they need to have a goal or aim with it something more than just reading and analysing. I also believe that if the students chooses the novel themselves you as a teacher should let them read it and analyse it since the novel has a lot of interesting aspects in one way.

It's been a while since i wrote about a novel or frankly anything I have read. I asume almost everyone has heard of The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read this novel last semester but yeasterday we had a guest lecturer at the university talking about Gatsby's sifting personal identity. This novel is a bit different from an ordinary novel it is narrated from the view of a character who are present in the story. This aspect of the narration makes the novel very interesting at the same time as it makes you wonder if you can trust the narrator? Many of the events narrated in the story the narrator Nick couldn't be apart of, who how does he know what have happened and what have been said? How can we trust that what he writes is the truth? 

Narration of this novel is only one small part of the whole novel and a second really intersting aspect is Gatsby. In the beginning of the novel we don't know who he is and he is portrayed in a kind of mystical manner since he throws these parties but knowone really knows who the host of the party is. Later in the novel we learn that Gatsby throws these parties for a long lost love, Daisy. According to the lecturer Gatsby lives in the past in that manner that he believes that he and Daisy still are in love. He doesn't really see Daisy as who she is, for example, Gatsby can't tell what it is about her that he loves so much. In one way he as injected his own person and connected his own identity to Daisy and when loosing her he looses himself. 

I haven't seen the film adaptation of the novel, but the lecturer argued that the film portrayed a love story which actually never takes place in the film. It's not a love story, it's a story about identity in one manner. As a reader you can almost decide yourself what kind of story you want to get out of it since there are a lot of interpretations you can make.

If I would use this novel in a class it would be in English 7 since it is not a very easy novel to read or to understand. I would use it as a part of a theme about identity for example since this novel portrayes Gatsby's idenity crisis in one manner and how he deals with it. The interpretation could be somewhat dark since Gatsby dies at the end of the novel and I believe that if he hadn't been shoot he would have taken his own life because he has lost his identity. Gatsby identified himself in Daisy and loosing her is to much for him.

Eventhough I have a lot to do when it comes to my studies I really can't keep my hands off of Harry Potter and the cursed child. I have read the first act and I really love it, it is so breathtaking and I would love to get to see the play it would be wonderful and exciting. The best would've been if they would decide to make a screen play for all the fans who will not be able to travel to London and see the play. Well, at least we have the manuscript and get to know the story of Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy.

While reading this first act I reflected upon the end of the Harry Potter series and how nervous Albus was about begining at Hogwarts, how afraid he was about being put in Slytherin when both his parents and his older brother was all in Gryffindor. What Harry then tells his son is really beautiful that it doesn't matter, that he will love his son either way. Well, in the play the story evolves and many semesters come and go and the realtionship between father and son gets worse. I'm specifically thinking about the scene were Harry gives his older son James the invisibility cloak and Albus gets a ordinary blanket. I think yeah, what response did he actually expect from his son? A blanket isn't as exciting as an invisiblity cloak and I can't but think that Albus actually feels a litte betrayed by his father and maybe thinking that James got the cloak since he is in Gryffindor and he Albus gets a filthy blanket since he is in Slythering. 

The cloak and the blanket are symbols for the two houses and the two boys. One is popular and have a lot of friends while the other is unpopular and made fun of and only has one friend Scorpious the son of the archenemy of his father. 

The next book that I have read is Eragon written by Christopher Paolini. The most spectacular about this novel is that Paolini wrote it when he was 15 years old and it got first published when he was 17.

About the book then, Eragon is a encredible story about a teenage boy called Eragon. He lives in a land called Alagaësia. Eragon finds a mysterious stone in the mountains were he lives, but it turn out that it is not a stone but a dragon egg. When the egg hatched Eragon named the blue dragon Saphira. Eragons life turns upside-down when the evil king Galbatroix finds out about the whereabouts of Eragon and his dragon Saphira and they have to flee for their lives together with the villages storyteller Brom. 

The story is really exciting and it is hard to put away the book. The book has a really easy language and is suitable for younger readers even though the book is rather long. This book is very good if you want to read about personal development since the main character Eragon does both a physical and pshycial journey. Eragon grows in the story and he is a completely different person in the end of the book than he is at the beginning. The things he has seen and been a part of has changed him and he himself is not sure if it is for the better or worse.

There has been made a filmatisation of the novel but the film is very different from the novel. My opinion on that is that the film is not as good as the book and I believe that the film would have had greater success if it would have stayed true to the book.