Implication Writing Structure
- Darcie Flansburg
- Jan 2
- 6 min read
Students struggle to analyze texts for two reasons – they simply summarize or they focus so much on analysis they miss the forest for the trees.
The implication writing structure helps students to look beyond the text for broader implications and then dive deeper to analyze how those implications are conveyed.
I developed this structure while teaching IB DP Language and Literature when I noticed that all of the assessments for the course required that students interpret implications but found that many of my students were not consistently meeting this requirement. In order to get an above average score, students needed to interpret more than one implication on all of the assessments. Most of my students barely recognized one implication and were often addressing it in the conclusion.
I was also struggling with students who were focusing on one authorial choice in a body paragraph, which means that their analysis was focused on literary or rhetorical techniques rather than broader implications.
Many of the popular writing structures ask students to do the same thing. They begin with a point/assertion/claim/topic sentence and then prove it with textual evidence or examples and then analyze those examples or textual evidence. And while the structure is appropriate, students don’t know what a claim should be, or how to connect their analysis to that claim.
The other issue is that even if students address a broader implication, their essays become redundant as they repeatedly prove that same claim in every paragraph rather than exploring multiple implications which creates a more nuanced analysis with syntactical and linguistic variety.
In the Implication Writing Structure brainstorming graphic organizer (seen below) students start with a main idea. This idea can be based on the essay prompt or the main idea of the text they are reading. Then, students determine two or three implications that connect to the main idea or essay prompt. From there they determine what authorial choices (literary devices, rhetorical techniques, etc.) are used to convey each implication. Each implication and the authorial choices that convey that implication make one body paragraph.
Below is an example of how the implication writing structure would be filled in.
The above graphic organizer is based on The Guardian article "No Diet, No Detox: how to relearn the art of eating". The below paragraph is an example of a completed paragraph, focusing on the first implication -- people do not know what to eat.
Wilson begins her article by explaining that people do not know what is actually healthy to eat. The charged diction in the headline offers words that have negative connotations because of societal expectations of food. The alliterative words “diet” and “detox” in the heading entail restrictive eating and a need to remove toxins from one’s body in order to be healthy. In the sub-heading she writes “our relationship with food has become disordered and obsessive”. The inclusive language of “our relationship” entails that this is universal problem, implying that everyone has “disordered” and “obsessive” eating habits, personifying the toxic relationship we have with food. In her first paragraph Wilson explains that our “anxieties” around food are misguided, but only because we do not know what to believe. She writes, “we obsess about the properties of various ingredients; the protein, the omega oils, the vitamins. But nutrients only count when a person picks up food and eats it”. The antithetical statement creates a parallel structure amongst ingredients, emphasizing that the ingredients are equal, but that the main issue is that we actually have to eat the food to benefit from its nutritional value. Wilson’s exclamatory and imperative syntax imitates what is heard by the media – “Eat this! Don’t eat that!” – which illustrates how people are made to feel confused about what they should and should not eat. Wilson ends the first paragraph with her own imperative syntax saying “we have to find a way to want to eat what’s good for us”, which is the crux of her article – we, as humans, need to learn to eat healthfully. Therefore, it is our approach to food that is most important.
This writing structure could be used for literary or rhetorical analysis, analyzing literary or non-literary texts, but I noticed that some of the best literary analysis is focused specifically on character analysis.
To help students analyze implications for the IBDP Lang and Lit Paper 2, I developed another graphic organizer that helps students compare two texts (seen below).
Below is an example of how this graphic organizer would be completed using Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Below is an example of two paragraphs that focus on the first implication -- people pretend to be something they are not in order to gain power.
Both Miller and Kesey uses direct and indirect characterization to illustrate characters who use deception to gain power. In The Crucible, Abigail Williams is first described in the stage directions as having “…an endless capacity for dissembling.” As an orphan who was taken in by her uncle after her parents were murdered right in front of her, Abigail has earned a reputation in town for being a homewrecker, to the point where she will not be hired by any of the households in Salem after being dismissed from the Proctor house. Elizabeth and John Proctor indirectly discuss the affair in Act 2 of the play. Their conversation is full of euphemisms and innuendo, evidence of an attempt at being polite to each other after many arguments on the same subject where no agreement was made. In an effort to win John Proctor back, Abigail, along with the other young girls in Salem, begin to accuse people of witchcraft; many of the accused are the wives of men the young girls hope to marry. Abigail’s deception is believed by the Puritans of Salem who quickly see her as a savior who is freeing the town from the grasp of the devil. In a scene that Miller later added to the play that some directors choose not to include in their stage version, Abigail meets John in the woods to talk about her visions. Even in this private conversation between two people who have been intimate with each other, Abigail still makes an effort to deceive John into thinking that she only trying to help, and that Elizabeth’s soul has been attacking her every night. Abigail’s victimized diction shows that she is starting to believe her own stories and wanting John to believe that she is suffering for the good of the town. Unable to convince him to “help” her, Abigail officially accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft in a final attempt to gain power over the entire town and win back her lover.
Similarly, McMurphy in OFOTCN inadvertently uses deception to gain power in the mental ward. Unlike Abigail, he feigns ignorance as a new patient in the ward, whereas Abigail is well aware of what she is doing. McMurphy’s demeanor when he arrives in the ward is jovial, a clear juxtaposition to the melancholy state of the current patients there. McMurphy acts as though he is there to make friends and gamble introducing himself and calling the patients “buddies” and identifying as a “gambling fool.”. His colloquialisms depict McMurphy as an easy-going guy who is not trying to pretend he is someone he’s not. But when Nurse Ratched reads his file at McMurphy’s second group meeting, it is evident to the patients that McMurphy may be trying to deceive them into believing he is a good guy. McMurphy’s response to the rape accusation is as casual as his cheerful interactions with the other patients. His colloquialisms and sexual innuendo imply innocence and a fun-loving, misunderstood attitude. In the meeting the doctor questions McMurphy about previous psychiatric treatment and McMurphy responds by saying “I am crazy” as if he needs to convince them that his is in fact a “psychopath.”. The doctor reads from the file that McMurphy’s previous doctor suggests that McMurphy may be “feigning psychosis” to get out of doing hard labor at the “work farm.”. It is here that McMurphy’s deception is explicitly displayed in the work file, but as the book goes on it is evident that McMurphy uses his deception to gain power amongst the other patients, and eventually over Nurse Ratched.
I also developed an implication graphic organizer to help students organize their ideas for the IBDP Lang and Lit Individual Oral assessment where they have to determine a global issue and explain how the issue is conveyed in a literary text and a non-literary body of work.
This graphic organizer could be completed in multiple ways, as seen below.
The purpose of the Implication Writing Structure is to help students move beyond simply summarizing a text or becoming too granular in their analysis. The idea is to help students zoom out to look at the larger implications of a text and then zoom in to analyze how the text conveys those implications.
Though I developed the Implication Writing Structure to help my IBDP Lang and Lit students, the structure is applicable for any analytical writing where teachers want students to think beyond the text, reading between the lines to determine how the text conveys larger issues about humanity, society, and an individual's place within the world.
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