Links:
Due: bi-monthly
Requirements:
* 1 page MINIMUM in length (12 pt. Font max)
* Word Processed (typed using spell-check, etc.)
* Titles and Authors
* Pages or Chapters Read
A Literary Response Paper is a piece of writing where you synthesize the literature we have been exploring in class (and/or you have been reading on your own on occasion). We will be keeping a spiral notebook Reading Log in class where you will be responding to the literature we encounter on an informal basis. You will be using your log in class as you explore questions about the literature, dialogue journal, jot down notes and comments during discussion. Your bi-monthly paper is a way to think about the learning you have done in class and to write it up in a more formal format. However, as long as you are responding to literature, you can’t go wrong!
In your Literary Response Paper, write about your thoughts, reactions, interpretations, connections, and questions to what we are reading in class. Choose one aspect from your Literature Log and write about it. You can write about what you want to preserve as a reader/writer (craft). Your response can tell about how you felt when you read about something and why. Tell what you noticed about how the author wrote. Tell why you think he or she wrote this way. Tell what the book said and meant to you. Tell what it reminded you of (make connections to your life, to other works, to the world at large). Tell what surprised you and what you would like to know more about. Tell what your reading inspired you to research. Ask questions or tell about what might confuse you. Write about any techniques the author used that you noticed (literary devices that struck you). Try to notice what an author writes that makes it “good” writing. Write about strategies that helped you comprehend the reading and explain how they helped you have a deeper understanding. Write about something a classmate brought up during discussion or silent dialogue. Write about something you discovered from a classmate or me during discussion of a novel. Write about a new vocabulary word you discovered and how you might use it in the future. Do not summarize a plot, however, you may want to begin with a brief summary of the events or circumstances to which you are referring.
Use your literature log and this sheet to remind you how to respond. Your Literary Response Papers will be read by classmates and by me, so be aware that you will have an audience. Your papers will be assessed using the Assessing Literary Response rubric and should reflect a variety of types of responses over a series of papers. Do not try to respond in every way for each paper. Rather, focus on one or two types of responses and then change them the next time.
Each time a literary response paper is due, you must turn it in with your assessment sheet.