Today in class Maia Ipp came in to teach us about Lit Critiques. For those who don’t know, Lit Critiques are papers written to extrapolate literary devices/analyze a piece of writing. Accompanying the essay is a creative response that demonstrates some of the literary devices in the poem, fiction, etc. that was analyzed. For the first lit critique of the year we work on the essay with our writing buddies, which I feel really helps the freshman become less confused. We need to complete one per marking period (six per year) so these papers are an anticipated and vital part of CW, and as a freshman I felt somewhat anxious about making my first one.

Maia first explained what a lit critique was supposed to do and have, and then told us the different between form and content (shown in the photo). She gave us examples of literary devices, which really made it easier for me to understand what to write for a critique. Then we split up into our writing buddies and showed each other the pieces that we could choose. My writing buddy, Clare (’17), and I came to a consensus on the piece we would work together on, and got to work analyzing the poem (“The Poplar” by Vladimir Nabokov).

Overall, today was a great day. I’m excited about writing my first (of many) lit critiques, thanks to Maia.

Ren Weber, Class of 2019