Teaching Analytical Writing: The TIQA Paragraph

Welcome back to my series on teaching analytical writing! Before I assign an analytical essay, I give students plenty of practice with the main building block of an analytical essay: the analytical body paragraph. I’ve tried a few different acronyms for the analytical paragraph format, such as PIE (point, illustration, explanation) or TEE + T (topic sentence, example, explanation plus transition). I now use TIQA (topic sentence, introduction of quote, quote, analysis of quote) and recommend it for students who are in seventh grade or older.

First, I remind students that analytical paragraphs show opinion, but without using first or second person, and that the convention is to use present tense to discuss the events of a literary work. Then I break down what each part of the acronym means (the starred elements are optional):

T: The topic sentence must lay out the main point for the whole paragraph. It is an umbrella sentence for the paragraph, meaning that everything in the paragraph fits underneath it.

I: The introduction of the quote establishes what has just happened before the quote, what is happening now, where the characters are, who’s involved in the conversation, etc.

Q: The quote must make sense on its own and be properly punctuated, with a signal phrase (such as “Mabel narrates”) or signal sentence (such as “Mabel explains what happens next”) before it and a page number in parentheses after it. The quote is the core of an analytical paragraph, not just an example that’s wedged into the writer’s thoughts. It should ideally be under four lines of text to avoid dealing with pesky block quote format.

A: The analysis of the quote should be the longest and most detailed part of the paragraph. In the analysis, the writer should focus on specific words and phrases from the quote and carefully explain how those words and phrases support the point from the topic sentence.

T*: The transition sentence offers a transition between the writer’s first and second quote.

I*: Introduction of quote 2

Q*: Quote 2

A*: Analysis of quote 2

With middle school students, I think it’s worth the time investment to do several practice analytical paragraphs before asking students to write a literary essay that includes multiple analytical paragraphs. I tend to follow the “I do, we do, you do” rule of teaching writing, so usually I will provide an example of a paragraph that I have written, then we will write one together as a class as I project it on the board, and then I will have students write their own. Lately I have also been doing some partnered paragraphs so that students can help each other grasp the concept.

I also provide scaffolding by providing options for topic sentences at first, because some students have a difficult time coming up with a statement that includes enough opinion and sets them up to analyze. Usually I don’t have students try TIQATIQA paragraphs with two quotes until they have mastered single TIQAs. Once they have started to practice writing these paragraphs, it’s a good idea to brainstorm lists of good verbs for analytical writing (such as show, convey, portray, depict, emphasize, hint, suggest, reveal, etc.).

It tends to take a lot of practice before students really grasp how to break down quotes into key parts and analyze them. We practice doing this in class discussions as well as in writing, and in my experience, this is a skill that most students are ready to work on in seventh grade, but in sixth grade I stick with a format like TEE + T (topic sentence, example, explanation plus transition) and don’t worry quite so much about introducing quotes with correct signal phrases or sentences or writing truly analytical explanations of quotes.

Here is a color-coded Example TIQA about the novel April Morning. Next time I’ll explain how I use “essay skeletons” to get students ready to write essays.