Writing Response - American Literature

 When an “Individual Response Writing” is DUE, you will  choose ONE of the readings from the “Selected Reading”  Type your response  directly in the forum and make sure to cover all categories. Your  response should be in paragraph format and aim for a minimum of 200/250  words.  

Readings:

·         Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

·         Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”

Read, Respond, Summarize, Analyze, Interpret, and Draw Conclusions.

When you begin to think about the essays you will write in this  course, it will not be enough to summarize the work. You will need to  think critically about the writing and this reading strategy will help  you move beyond a summary. Each response should be a minimum of 250  words.

Each response writing should provide the following—

1)   An Honest Response to the Writing—Write a few  sentences about how the work made you feel (ex. “Angry because… “Or  “joyful because…” or “confused because…” There is no right or wrong  answer here. These few sentences should be honest and capture your  initial response to the piece of writing.

2)   A Summary of What You Read—Summarize what happened in the writing. Who were the characters? What happens in the story or poem? What is the story about?

3)   An Analysis or Close Reading—This is the part of  the response writing that really begins our critical thinking. Does  something appear symbolic?  Are there any metaphors and similes that  expand meaning? Does there appear to be a common theme? What details  seem relevant? You will not find every literary device in every reading.  In this section of the response writing, you should begin to decide  what seems to have meaning or purpose? Be sure to pay attention to the  form, the title, the content and the rhythm.

4)  An Interpretation—This is the part of the response  writing that will allow you to pull the “clues” together and offer a  statement on what you think the story is really about? You will combine your summary and analysis to provide an argument about the text.

5)   Drawing Conclusions—This part of the response  writing will require that you incorporating the above process and  integrating some direct quotes from the actual work of study to support  your findings and interpretations.