Sample Images
The images in Thinking on the Page help to clarify challenging methods and concepts.
Thinking about the essay as a journey might seem corny, but it's really useful. Instead of constructing the essay as a series of repetitions (the five-paragraph formula), imagine it as a trip from one place to another. You start with something you want to explore; look at it closely; figure some things out about it; and end up somewhere new.
A journey is also a story: each panel here corresponds to a part of the journey and the story the traveler (that is, the author) wants to tell about it. In our imagined journey, the traveler/author is in Italy, asking questions about the amazing coffee and pizza she's discovered there. These questions and answers will provide the structure for the eventual story she writes.
Often the biggest challenge for students is finding something to say about a text. The key to having something to say is close reading, a process that lets you look super closely at small bits of the text. When you look this closely, suddenly things you might have overlooked become visible.
Because you can't read a whole text closely, it's useful to learn how to recognize moments with potential. Here's another metaphor: think about the plot as a train, and the language of the text as the tracks the train runs along. If the train loses hold of the tracks and goes off in some other direction--that is, if the plot diverges from the language of the text, there's probably something interesting to look at.