Response Papers
The response paper provides you with an opportunity to practice the skills
of close reading that you will be using on your papers. Pick a passage from
the text you'll be considering--a passage that seems significant to you--and
develop your sense of its significance in one single spaced page or less. Your
focus should be on details of the passage, though you may of course draw connections
to other passages or make broader points about the work as a whole. As you think
about your passage, you might consider the following elements:
- Diction
- Figures of Speech
- Imagery
- Characterization
- Point of View
- Plot
- Setting
- Tone
(For definitions of these and other terms, consult William Harmon's A Handbook
to Literature, which is available in the Reading Room, or Bedford/St. Martin's
online Glossary
of Literary Terms.)
Email your response to your classmates (and to me) the night before class,
and be prepared in class to initiate a discussion of the passage you've written
on. Your reading response will serve as the starting point for the discussion.
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