Response
Papers
You will be
asked to e-mail or post weekly Response Papers throughout the course.
Use the them as an opportunity to express your thoughts more formally
than in your reading journal and open them up for discussion with your
classmates. Response Papers are generally 350 words long with the exception
of Afterthoughts (600 words) which count as two Response Papers.
Please feel
free to write in the first person. Possible approaches include, but are
by no means limited to:
- analyzing
a passage or episode that puzzles, moves, or upsets you;
- comparing
different versions of tales;
- analyzing
the significance or motivations of a character;
- comparing
this week's reading with last week's;
- arguing
with ideas presented in a critical article.
We invite you
to connect the course material to your other classes, books, movies, current
events, and your own life experience. Just remember to anchor the Reading
Response in the readings you are dicussing.
If you are
asked to post your responses on toolkit, try not to dublicate the postings
of others. This should be an incentive to post early and as an incentive
to read what others have posted. If one of your colleagues has already
posted something very close to what you wanted to say, make sure to refer
to that particular posting by providing commentary and adding a new perspective
and new references.
Response papers
include these types (indicated on the syllabus):
- Reading
Response: Before class, reflect on the reading and explore a question
that interests you.
- Afterthoughts
(600 words): After class or a class period, reflect back on the
readings and discussion synthesizing what you take away.
- Debates:
Engage your classmates in a debate about readings.
- Book
Review: click here for details.
Guidelines
for Writing Successful Response Papers
Response writing
is different from paper writing. In your Response Papers you can be more
intuitive and less formal than in the 5 page paper. However, a few basic
guidelines might help you to write successful responses:
- Audience
- Your classmates and professor. Assume you are writing for an audience
that is familiar with the texts and our discussion and that your reader
is intelligent and curious.
- Make
a choice - A good response paper focuses on a specific idea
and explores it in some depth. Choose an idea that you know is your
own, one that is not based on a cliché, and does not present
a broad generalization.
- Be
specific and concrete - A good response paper is like a mini
argument using concrete examples from the text to support your point.
- Go
beyond expressing your emotional reaction - Refer to your emotional
response to a reading only if you proceed to analyze how it presents
a key to an understanding of the text.
- Proofread
your response for grammatical correctness and show that you have read
the texts by referring to characters and authors by their accurate names.
- Turn
in your response paper on time as specified on
the syllabus.
Grading
Scale
v+
excellent (A)
v good (B)
v- average (C)
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