Prewriting the Critical Analysis Paper

Rue pointing at the trackerjacker
nest.

I'm supposed to write about the prewriting for my paper on the scene from The Hunger Games.  As I understand it, I need to prewrite two sections:  the explanation of my critical approach (myth criticism), and the analysis of the scene (the one where Rue dies).  I started with the explanation, because I thought that would be the tougher part, and I was right.  When I got to the analysis, I had to keep going back to the explanation because I remembered something I left out.

When I prewrite, I usually just brainstorm, but sometimes I'll start writing a paragraph or two because I have an idea how to handle it, which means that it looks pretty strange.  This is what works for me, though, so I'm going to keep on doing it that way.  The things I came up with for the explanation were:  Road of Trials, death of the mentor (yes, Rue is a mentor, if only for a short time, and this is one of the things that came to me when I was working on the analysis), hero archetypes, the goddess Artemis, Atalanta, virgins in Greek mythology, tricks in mythology, monsters (I think Cato is a monster in a way, kind of like the Minotaur).  There was more that I got rid of.

With the analysis, I had the following, plus a couple paragraphs in the middle that I'm leaving out here:  explain plan to destroy food, Katniss as hero, Katniss as Artemis/Atalanta, Rue as mentor (signals with mockingjays), shooting the apples (Atalanta?), attack/instant retribution, Rue dies - last words, song, flowers, salute (I really want to mention the explanation of this from the book, but I guess I can't), grieving.

I'll bet a lot of that doesn't make sense to anybody but me, but that's what I've got for now, and I may have a thesis already.  On to the draft.

Related articles

• Prewriting: A Neglected Stage of the Writing Process (revolutionarypaideia.com)
• Having difficulty writing a Response to Literature: Book Review? Practice One Step at a Time (sfxschoolnews.typepad.com)
• 30 Days of PreWriting... Still Coming (maidenfine.wordpress.com)
• Amazing Modern Day Trojan Horse Made From Over 18,000 Salvaged Computer Keys (inhabitat.com)