About The Monkey's Paw:

Writing an essay that analyzes a work of literature is a different -- and more difficult -- kind of essay writing for students that are high school freshmen or upper middle school students. Analyzing a work of literature does NOT mean summarizing the plot!

This lesson teaches students exactly how to write a literary analysis essay. It uses the classic suspense short story "The Monkey's Paw" (story included in the lesson as an example work of literature. and then takes students step-by-step through how to write an essay on it.

This lesson contains:

• a link to the full text of the classic horror story "The Monkey's Paw", published in 1902 and now in the public domain. In this story, a family is granted three wishes by a cursed monkey's paw, with the wishes coming true with tragic and unforeseen consequences.

• one-paragraph introduction to the story and setting

• a short introduction to literary-analysis writing

• explanations of thesis statement and text evidence

• a prompt (essay topic) based on the short story

• suggestions on how to brainstorm and plan this prompt

• suggestions on how to organize the writing

• a full sample essay (about 325 words) based on this prompt