Response papers are not formal essays. They are meant to be fairly quickly written discussions of your own reactions to issues raised in the
Response papers are not formal essays. They are meant to be fairly quickly written discussions of your own reactions to issues raised in the readings, class discussion, or things you encounter outside of class which relate to this assignment. You should think of a reaction paper as being like a blog or other forms of free writing: there’s usually a fair amount of thought (and also editing) that goes into it, but it’s not prepared in the way that an essay is prepared, and it’s usually more spontaneous and personal than an essay.
You should try to connect the specific source you choose (ie the thing you are responding to) to other materials we have covered in the course, or to things that you have encountered from other classes or your own experience. Make sure that you center the course material rather than material about other places.
Feel free to use your own voice in the response papers. I will not grade for spelling or grammar in these papers, but I will expect you to be able to express your point clearly and concisely. Don’t ramble for several paragraphs while you figure out what you want to say. Or at least if you do ramble, go back and edit I down once you’ve gone through that process.
Also, you should try to insert some of your own ideas and responses into the response papers. Students often think that they should summarize the readings. This is not what I want. I will figure out if you understand the readings based on how you discuss it rather than whether you can explicitly name the major points of the article. You can summarize an author’s point if it feeds into something you want to say, but otherwise, try to avoid simply listing the various ideas made by the various authors
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