I was SO sick of reading, "This quote shows that..." so I did something about it.
You know the sentence: “This quote shows that the character is sad.” Or its slightly more ambitious cousin, “The author displays the theme of…” Students may recognize what’s happening in a text, but when they rely on the same vague verbs over and over, their writing stops at observation instead of explaining what the author is actually doing.
The right verb can push students toward deeper analytical thinking. There’s a meaningful difference between saying an author shows something and saying the author reveals, contrasts, reinforces, undermines, foreshadows, emphasizes, complicates, or challenges it. Giving students more precise language helps them think more precisely, moving them beyond simply identifying literary elements and toward explaining how and why those elements create meaning.
That’s why I created the Literary Analysis Verb Bank: a ready-to-use collection of strong, specific verbs students can reach for when their analysis gets stuck at shows and displays. Keep it handy during close reading, annotation, discussion, or essay writing to give students the vocabulary they need to say what they actually mean—and maybe, just maybe, you’ll never have to circle shows three times in the same paragraph again.