Reading Response Essays--Assignment and Guidelines

English 2110 American Lit 1, O'Donnell, ETSU Spring 2019

last update: January 10, 2019

Assignment

Over the course of the semester, you will write 4 reading response essays, of 1-3 typed pages (300-900 words) each. Those 4 grades together count for 20% of your final grade. See the course calendar for due dates.

For your topics, pick either A) any of the readings assigned during the week for which a given response essay is due, or B) anything we've read for class since the previous response essay was due.

Guidelines

Your purpose is to introduce a literary work that we've read for class.  Describe that work, and comment on some aspect of it. Write for a broad, general audience. Don't write for just the teacher.  Rather, write in such a way that, if a stranger found your response essay on the internet, she or he could understand and enjoy it. 

So, in other words, you'll follow the basic principles for good expository writing:  Announce your subject, purpose, and focus -- in your title, information blurb, and/ or first paragraph.  Clearly develop your ideas with specific info, and write in a clear and engaging fashion.

To that end:

1 - Write a descriptive title and subtitle, and/ or summary blurb for your response essay.

2 - Include an information blurb or text box with the basic information about the literary text you are discussing.  This usually includes:

A. author's name, and year born and died;

B. complete title of the work;

C. year that the work was first published;

D. info about publisher or periodical;

E. genre terms

3 - Describe the work for the reader. Include such information as the following:  A. Who are the main characters?  B. Where and when is the work set?  C.  How long is it, and what are its basic plot points? 

4 - Also, consider including some or all of the following: 

A. a few words about yourself: Who you are, and why you, in particular, find the work meaningful or significant. 

B. a good quote or two from the work to which you're responding. Set up and explain each quote, and make its significance clear.

C. a discussion of the author of the work, and the historical context:  When and where did that person write and publish it? What other notable events were happening around that same place and time?

5 - Feel free to discuss problems with the work. For example, did you find it hard to read or understand? Would other 21st century Americans have trouble with it? What challenges, specifically, does the work present? Your job is NOT to uncritically praise a work; rather, discuss your experience with it, in an honest way, so that your reader can understand your take on the piece.

Example of a Good Title, Blurb, and First Paragraph

I adapted this from a student's essay--with that student's permission--in order to post it here as an example:

Here, Kitty Kitty: Poe Anticipates 21st Century Horror Movie Conventions in One Scary Short Story 

Written by Joe Student, for American Lit 1, ETSU, Weds Jan 25, 2017

A response to"The Black Cat"

by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

First published in United States Saturday Post (Philadelphia), August 19, 1843

Short fiction, horror, Gothic

Edgar Allan's creepy short story, "The Black Cat," which is reprinted in the Norton American Lit anthology, contains many of the elements that I've seen in modern American horror movies:  It features a strange narrator/ main character who seems to be going insane.  It highlights that character's psychological disturbance -- that is, his abusive behavior towards women and animals. And it hints darkly at supernatural forces, though it is never clear whether the supernatural forces are actually loose in the world, or merely figments of the narrator's disturbed imagination.