Pre-service Teachers’ Performance and Difficulties in Literary Analysis: A Proposed Writing Model

Abstract

This paper is a quantitative-descriptive study. Its objectives are to evaluate the 41 English pre-service teachers’ performance in writing literary analysis and their difficulties. A scoring rubric, which consists of 6 criteria, namely, focus, supporting reasons, reasoning, organization, convention, and integration, was used to assess the students' performance in literary analysis. Results showed that their performance in the following areas: focus, supporting reasons, convention, and integration, was at an "accomplished level." Meanwhile, reasoning and organization fall under the "developing level." Overall, their performance in writing literary analysis was at an "accomplished" level. Additionally, difficulties were prominent in the body section compared to the introduction and conclusion sections. Crafting a strong thesis statement, providing adequate context, creating an engaging hook, and creating a vague thesis statement were difficulties found in the introduction. Meanwhile, the body section presented notable difficulties, such as crafting concise and focused topic sentences, analyzing textual evidence, inconsistent depth across paragraphs, a lack of textual evidence, incorrect punctuation for textual evidence, and transitioning between paragraphs. Other difficulties were found in the conclusion sections, including restating the thesis without new insights, overemphasizing personal opinions, being overly redundant, and abrupt endings. A writing model in literary analysis was designed to guide students in crafting a literary analysis. The writing model consists of preliminary activities, before, during, and after writing. Moreover, this paper recommends that teachers conduct an intervention on the identified difficulties, expose students to various literary pieces and approaches, and use the writing model to test its effectiveness.