Instead of asking what this essay or book means, in our reading responses, we ask: how was it made? What can we learn for our own writing from how this was made? This is not a class focused on teaching you how to analyze literature. This is a class focused on teaching you how to make literature.
So the goal of the reading response is practical: how can we look closely at a piece of published work in a way that will help us become better writers.
Choose from any of the prompts below which particularly compel you as they relate to a published essay or book for this class. You can write your entire response on one question. You can write a response to three questions or nine or six, or four! Be thoughtful. Look closely and avoid vague generalizations.
The Reading Response Buffet
Do a line by line close reading of a passage, focusing on explicit and implicit meaning. Focus on one or many craft features.
Who is the limited persona?
Why is this story being told?
What's the situation? (in two sentences)
What's the story? (the insight, the wisdom, the thing the author has come to say)
What's the conflict? What does the protagonist want? What's in the way? Are the obstacles formidable? What are they? Chart the narrative arc: the rising action and turning point
How is the story a record of choices?
How is the story a record of change? (How does the protagonist change?)
What are your impressions? (Did you like it? Not like it? Feel ambivalent about it?)
What is it about? What about what it's about? So what?
Analyze closely at any one craft feature: Point of View, Characterization, Image, Setting, Atmosphere, Narrative Structure, etc.
How does this influence your own writing? (Be specific: what changes in your piece does it make you want to make?)
Reading Responses should be two pages, double-spaced, typed.
Good Luck!