New Critics also investigate the meaning behind word choices, including a word’s denotation, connotation, history, and any allusion the word is making. 

They do this through character analysis, which comes out of the driving force behind psychoanalysis as a medical practice: to understand motives and relationships and to explain our growth and development on the level of humanity as a whole. 

Marxist theorists believe that a literary work can only be understood in its full context. Works are written within the context of the group ideology and the times in which they are written.
Another application of Marxism to literature is the belief that culture cannot be separated from the socioeconomic system that created it. 
An alternative way to interpret texts in an analysis is to see literature as an active agent.

Example: to teach close reading explicitly with reading strategies, you can create a worksheet with multiple columns for students to fill in as they read. In one column, students should write out the quote, symbol, or concept that drew their attention as well as the page or line number. In a second column, they should reword the quote, or explain the concept in more detail. In a third column, students should explain why this quote, concept, or symbol in significant. 

Example: Tell students that their job is to determine what the main point of the article is, and find support for it within the article; this is very similar to the New Critical concept of close reading. Have students make notes on the paper as they engage it on their own, then meet in groups based on what article they read. Inform students that they may not all have the same opinion. 

Example: to help students understand the concepts, you can have them help teach them to the class by making a set of instructional videos.

Example: Internal Monologue: The use of creative drama is a fun way to show students how to read between the lines and discover hidden narratives and drives. With four student volunteers, two students will have a conversation while the other two give internal commentary that may or may not align with the situation in “real life.” 

•      Subconscious Arguments

Example: with the use of creative drama, you can show students the way Freud perceives the subconscious. Students form two lines facing one another, one representing the Superego and one representing the Id (students should be aware of their roles). Each student will take a turn reading off a dilemma, and walking between the lines, each student member of the subconscious giving advice they believe is characteristic of their role. 

• Stream of Consciousness: 

Example: in a writing activity, have students write constantly for five minutes without a prompt (this amount of time is supposedly long enough for their subconscious to take over). Then, have them go back through it and do a form of psychobiography, applying the criticism they are supposed to use as they read literature to their own writing. 

Example: while most works of literature can be analyzed using most lenses, you can make it easier for students by selecting works that are more applicable to Marxist criticism. One genre that fits this lens is utopia/dystopia. To differentiate for your students, you can choose different dystopia novels, including both modern ones and classics based on the ability level of your students. 

Example: to get students to read closely to determine the ideology behind a work, you can have them analyze advertisements. This will help them learn to identify hegemony and interpellation in works, and begin to think about what the works want them to think about the status quo, how it is working to maintain society as it is.

•  Creating an unbiased understanding

 It will be helpful to give students the pieces of Marxist theory gradually. This will help them to understand what they are actually doing, allowing them to keep an open mind about the theoretical school as it applies to literature.

• Case Study

Example: students should choose a situation that involved or impacted a female character, then analyze the actions of all characters involved, propose alternative ways of acting in the situation, and the potential outcomes of these actions.

• Acknowledge the Politics

 Example: one way to engage this in the classroom is to have students read nonfiction works by Feminist writers: articles, blogs, etc. to help familiarize themselves with the issues they will be looking for in the works of fiction they are critiquing. Note: when choosing these texts, analyze them first yourself for credibility.

Example: include Works Containing Characters, Issues, and Authors from the Gender, Sexuality, and Romantic Minority.

Example: students will write a list of ways this identity is performed, according to the portrayal of people and characters with these identities in the media. During the performance, students will write what they believe the identity being performed is and why on sheets of paper. After each individual performance, the class should vote and list what factors contributed to their decision. Note: this activity is meant to play on stereotypes perpetrated by the media and culture; students should be aware of this beforehand.

This activity is meant to help students grasp the idea of the sign=signified+signifier creation of meaning and its arbitrary nature, as they’re coming up with new signifiers for a signified they already have the sign for.

Example: students will be presented with a picture of a strange object, something that doesn’t look like anything they know or are familiar with. This may be an actual item. Students will then be asked to define what the item is. Inevitably, they will use differential relations to do this (ex: “Well, it doesn’t have a bottom, so it’s not a cup”).

Example: practice with poetry. 
Pick out poems for the class to analyze. Have them come up with a list of some binaries they see at work in the poem, such as sound/silence, warm/cold, white/black, nature/city, etc. Then have them practice deconstructing the text by reversing the binaries so the lesser-privileged term becomes the privileged one, going back through the poem with this reversal in mind, and seeing how the meaning changes.

1. In the first phase, give students a side for them to argue on. Tell them “your opinion” before they even start arguing (to mimic the privileging of one side of the binary). 
2. In the second phase, tell the lesser-privileged group they have made a good case and you’re willing to look into their position. This should force the privileged group to actually define their position in an effort to regain their former privilege in the binary.