What is a Reading Response Essay?
A Reading Response essay: * Summarizes what you read. * Gives your reaction to the text.
Your reaction will be one or more of the following: * Agreement/disagreement with the ideas in the text. * Reaction to how the ideas in the text relate to your own experience. * Reaction to how ideas in the text relate to other things you've read. * Your analysis of the author and audience. * Your evaluation of how this text tries to convince the reader and whether it is effective.
Bottom of Form
Reading Response Introduction and Conclusion Ideas Introduction | Conclusion | frame story: start a story (personal or in reading) | Finish the story | expectations fulfilled: tell what you expected or thought before reading the essay | tell how the reading met your expectations | expectations unfulfilled: tell your expectations | tell how these were overturned or changed | Questions: ask one or more questions about topic | answers to questions | Startling statistic or fact | How reading helps us understand or interpret fact or statistics | vivid description of subject with sensory images | tell how reading helps us understand description | scenario: show a typical scene or conversation relating to topic (real or made up) | finish scene or conversation or repeat it with a different ending | What we all know about topic (statements most people believe) | What is really true | Quote or famous saying | How quote explains your thesis |
Response Reading Help: Instead of "Jones says," you can use: said | concludes | defines | explains | elucidates | repeats | tells us | reports | argues | deduces | analyzes | suggests | warns | advises | investigates | asks | points out | comments | agrees | inimated | implies | hints | proposes | informs | quips | questions | denies | reassures us | demands | declares | remarks | relates | mentions | cautions | reveals | objects | insists |