Reading Responses

Dr. Plunges Fall 2018

Reading Response Guidelines English 203: World Literature

Over the course of the semester you are responsible for five, one-page reading response papers. You can do them on any of the readings we cover, and when you choose to do them is up to you. They account for nearly half of the required writing for the course, so they should be taken seriously. Here are some guidelines to help you: 1. Use 12-point font and Times New Roman font (or related standard font). Responses must also be double-spaced. 2. Think of the response as a three-paragraph exercise:

1st Paragraph: The first paragraph should discuss something strange, uncertain, mysterious, or ambiguous about the text (i.e., a difficult situation, a challenging idea, a unique stylistic choice, repetition of certain words, manipulation of time in the narrative (jumping forwards or backwards in time), use of metaphors, similes, and other rhetorical devices, strange characters, sudden events and changes in the direction of the story, etc.). * 2nd Paragraph: Attempt to explain why this strange feature exists. Here, you need to tell us how the strangeness helps to create a certain literary or artistic effect. How is, for example, saying “Dawn rose again with her rosy fingers” different from saying “the sun rose at 5:45 am”? You have some intellectual and creative freedom here. Speculate, wonder, go out on a limb and propose an answer to the oddness. *3rd Paragraph: Provide an additional piece of evidence from the text as a way to broaden your claims about the text and author. This is the crucial move that takes you once step closer to a theory about the work, something that in composition is often referred to as a thesis.

For example, here’s an outline of a possible reading response:

1st Paragraph: It is strange how Garcia-Marquez doesn’t directly explain what’s happening in Macondo, Colombia, and why. We get lots of details about people coming to the town, but he doesn’t just say “the banana corporation was moving in and taking over the land for their crops.” (Quote the text here.) How does his holding back of information create a more vibrant experience for his readers? (NB: Good idea to end first paragraph with a question.)

2nd paragraph: Garcia-Marquez holds back information as part of a narrative strategy that unites the reader’s viewpoint with that of the characters. The characters can’t know what will happen in the future, so neither can the readers.

Dr. Plunges Fall 2018

This allows for characters to live in the world of “magical realism,” in which their fate does not oppress them or give the reader a sense of looming disaster. By extension, the readers get to enjoy a magical world too, one that is not ruled entirely by the logic of industrial development and private sector or government control. 3rd paragraph: In the Remedios the Beauty episode, we are introduced to a character who doesn’t fit into the ‘real’ world by any stretch of the imagination. (Quote one or two examples from the text here in order to give your discussion evidence and authority.) Ultimately, Remedios the Beauty simply ascends out of the world and back to the heavens. It is this sort of fantastic detail that Garcia- Marquez’s withholding of a dominant, realist narrative makes possible, and it’s a huge part of why 100 Years of Solitude is such a beloved and critically acclaimed novel. **All responses should to be uploaded to Canvas in the folder titled Reading Response 1, 2, 3, etc. and a hard copy also needs to be brought to class**