WEEKLY DISCUSSIONS AND RESPONSE PAPERS

Every Friday we will have numerous small-group and whole-class discussions in this class based upon assigned readings.
These will be magazine articles and essays, poems, and short stories. The reading assignment will be handed out the Monday
before it is due. On Friday you will turn in a response paper and participate in a discussion.

PURPOSE: To expose you to a variety of respected publications

To expose you to professional non-fiction writing
To expose you to various biases of individual authors and magazines
To expose you to more modern fiction writing
To improve your ability to recognize argument and fallacies
To improve your ability to interpret works of literature
To give you practice integrating quotations
To provoke your thinking about happenings in the world

ASSIGNMENT STEPS: (Items in bold will be considered in grading)

1. Read the assigned text.
2. Think about the text’s meaning or main idea
3. Reread the text
4. Write a one sentence summary of the text at the top of your page. (Do not interpret
on this step when doing literature; simply give a straightforward summary of events.)
5. Reflect on the text. What questions do you have? What does the text make you think
about; in other words, does it remind you of another historical event, a movie you’ve seen,
a family member, etc.? Begin to answer any specific questions given to you for this
particular assignment. See my separate handout on good discussion questions.
6. Write your response. The entry must be at least 1 full, double-spaced page. In the
paper, comment on various aspects of the text. DO NOT SUMMARIZE HERE. This is
your chance to organize how YOU FEEL about what you read. You are allowed to use first
person. If you have a question about what you read, write that question, but you must at
least try to offer an explanation even if it is totally wrong. Do not try to address every
issue in every text you read; your paper would be impossibly long. Instead, focus on what
interested (or angered) you the most. Include at least one quote in your paper and
discuss its relevance. Mention the author’s name in various ways (the author suggests,
according to John Doe, Doe insists, declares, adds, asserts, reports, reveals, argues,
mentions, proposes, admits, believes, thinks, etc). Feel free to comment on author’s
writing style as well. You will use this response to aide in your discussion on Friday. It will
be taken up at the end of class and graded.
7. Proofread for grammar problems.
8. For magazine articles only, include MLA citation at the bottom of your response
paper.
9. Repeat this process if you have been given more than one text this week.
GRADING: Your grade will be a combination of both your discussion and your paper. Each response to each text is worth
50pts. I will mark your responses with either a zero(0), check (20), check minus (17), or check plus (25). You will receive a
separate grade for formatting, with each component being worth 5 pts. Once each nine weeks you will be required to expand
ONE of your response papers into a formal essay worth another 100pts. More on this later.