Commentary

The word "[X]" turns [A] into [B].

Point at one word. Say what it does.

The word "unsex" turns kindness into a problem she wants removed. unsex me here.

If [character] meant [A], they would have said [B]. They said "[quote]" instead.

When the exact word is a choice, not an accident.

If Lady Macbeth only wanted him brave, she would have said be brave. She said be a man. She has made murder the test of manhood. When you durst do it, then you were a man.

That is how [writer] makes [idea] look like [picture].

After the quote. Tie the picture back to your claim.

That is how Shakespeare makes ambition look like a horse that jumps too far and comes down on its head. Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself.

So the audience sees [X], not [Y].

The effect. What a person in the room would notice.

So the audience sees a king going mad, not a king in control. Nobody else can see Banquo's ghost.

This only works because of [earlier moment].

A later line that pays off an earlier one. Two quotes, one paragraph.

Out, damned spot, out, I say! only works because she once said A little water clears us of this deed.

The same idea comes back when [later moment].

The other direction. Start with the early line, land on the echo.

The flower-and-serpent plan comes back as False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

[Character] is not explaining. They are [doing X].

When students paraphrase the plot and think that is analysis.

Lady Macbeth is not advising. She is shaming him into the murder. When you durst do it, then you were a man.

The boast and the fact sit next to each other.

Poems especially. A claim in the line, a ruin in the next one.

Ozymandias says Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! The next thing in the poem is sand. The king's sentence does the opposite of what he meant.