Critical Response Essay

ENGL 1301

Miles

 

Critical Response Essay

Due Dates:

First Draft: 10/10

Final Draft: 10/22

Format:

3-4 pages, double-spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman font, default margins

 

MLA documentation (headings, citation, works cited page)

 

Readings:

 

“What’s Wrong with Gay Marriage” by Katha Pollitt, Bedford Reader pg. 570

 

“Gay “Marriage”: Societal Suicide”  by Charles Colson, Bedford Reader pg. 576

 

OVERVIEW:

 

You are to write an essay that includes (a) a summary (approximately 150-250 words) of the reading and (b) a strong response to that reading in which you speak back to that reading from your own critical thinking, personal experience, and values.  As you formulate your own response, consider both the author’s rhetorical strategies and the author’s ideas.  Think of your response as your analysis of how the text has expanded and deepened your thinking about its ideas.

 

 

The skills this assignment develops are crucial for academic writers.  You will learn how to summarize an article, including how to quote brief passages, how to use attributive tags to cue your reader that you are reporting someone else’s ideas rather than your own, and how to cite the article using Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation system.  Because writing summaries and producing strong responses are important writing-to-learn skills, you will draw on them any time you are asked to speak back to or critique a text.  These skills are also needed for writing exploratory essays, analysis and synthesis essays, researched arguments, and any other scholarly work that uses sources.  In learning how to summarize a text and interact with it in writing, you are learning how to contribute your own ideas to a conversation.  Weak readers passively report what others have said.  Strong readers see themselves as contributors to the conversation, capable of analyzing and evaluating texts, speaking back to other authors, and thinking actively for themselves.

 

Papers must adhere to MLA formatting guidelines. You will need to properly document sources and provide a works cited page.

 

Drafts/Revisions:

 

You will be required to submit a First Draft (due 10/10) and a Final Draft (due 10/22) for this assignment.

 

Intellectual Honesty:

All work you submit must be your own. If you consult any sources, whether oral or written, copyrighted or not, you must clearly distinguish between your words and ideas (or line of thought) and theirs at all times.

 

Grading:

 

Summary …...45%

Fairness/Accuracy

Attribution

Proper Use of Quotes

 

Critical Response……45%

Rhetorical Aspects

Ideas Critique

Personal Reflection

 

Thesis ………10%

Does the thesis present a challenging or intriguing ideas?

Does the thesis accurately forecast the rest of the essay?