eading Responses are designed to allow you to develop a response to a particular day’s assignment that goes beyond the bounds of what we discussed in the classroom. Thus, while it may originate in points of class discussion, it must consist primarily of your original thoughts.Additionally, these Reading Responses provide you with frequent opportunities to practice crafting concise, compelling academic prose. Writing is learned through experience – and these Reading Responses require you to put our class lessons into concrete practice.
Objectives:
??Each Reading Response should be between 500-800 words,.Submissions outside this range will be penalized.
??Reading Responses should consist primarily of your original thoughts regarding the day’s material of discussion. Of course, that does not mean that this assignment should be seen as a venue for presenting bare personal opinions of the “like/dislike” or “interesting/boring” variety. Instead, Reading Responses should demonstrate that you arecapable of engaging creatively and professionally with the content and format of the day’s topic.
??Possible topics for consideration include, but are not limited to:
O? Theses and sources: How does the author communicate theses, and/or construct arguments? How does the author connect these themes to the sources provided as evidence?
O? Format: Where is the thesis presented? How does the reading begin? When is the climax presented? When is evidence presented? How does the structure of the
reading impact the audience’s response to the information presented?
O? Themes: How do these themes operate if taken from the context of this reading and applied to another source, be it a work of fiction or an element of “real life”
experience? Are these themes still applicable in contexts other than their original
source?
O? Historical Moment: How do these fictional works reflect anxieties of their authors’ historical contexts? How do these reactions compare to our current historical
moment? Are the themes still applicable to the anxieties, issues, etc. of a different
time? And if so, why? [Hint: for this topic, avoid the overly simplistic response “It’s
still applicable because human beings never change.”]