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READING REACTIONS

Background:

This course requires you to read assigned texts in order to have content for the papers you need to write. A fundamental challenge for instructors is getting students to actually do the reading: as former students ourselves, we know that reading for a course is often a very low priority for many students for a variety of reasons:

• They don't like to read
• They don't have a habit of reading anything
• They may like to read, but only texts that they want to read
• They don't know how to read with focus
• They don't have time to read
• They don't have an environment that allows them to read without distraction
• When they read, they don't understand what they are reading
• Some folks are just lazy and like trying to fake their way through projects

All of these challenges are real for students—and for the instructors who need students to read in order to have a better grasp of the content of the course. 

I believe that reading is one of the most basic skills educated individuals need to be successful students, professionals, and citizens. Without the ability to read, you have to depend on other people to provide you with information or ideas, making you a receptacle for the ideas of others rather than thinking for yourself. The idea of being at the mercy of others to tell me what to think or believe frankly terrifies me, and so one of the most important skills I can attempt to help you either acquire is to learn to read efficiently and analytically so you can form your own opinions and support why you believe them.

 But reading in college is hard, and I acknowledge that.

In a face-to-face course, I "solved" the problem of making students read by requiring them to mark the assigned texts by underlining key ideas and making marginal comments. I would start each class by physically checking every student's readings for marks and assign a grade to each reading based on their annotations. For students, it's initially quite hard to mark in a book, but over time, it becomes much easier and provides the following advantages:

• The brain is more likely to recall information that it had to take the time to identify and then instruct the body to physically mark.
• For a non-digital document, you may have a "physical" memory of the location on a page of a piece of information because you marked it ("It's on the upper right of a left-side page").
• In fiction, you can use annotations to mark key plot points, first appearances of characters, important descriptions, patterns of character behavior, symbolism, words you don't know, questions you have about what's going on, and emotional reactions to the content that can help you to develop an idea for a paper.
• In non-fiction, you can label key pages at the top with important facts, formulas, and charts for quick reference. You can pull out key points spread out on the page, definitions you believe will be helpful for a paper or test, and other information that will help you to locate, recall, summarize, and use for schoolwork or professional activities.
• If you return to the book later, you can see what you thought when you were younger and compare your current reaction.

Marking a text helps you to own it in a way that simply running your eyes over the page does not.

Unfortunately, showing that you've marked a text in an online class is pretty labor-intensive for both instructors and students, so I have come up with the following plan to deal with evaluating if you have done the readings or not: the reading response.

Instructions

• Read and mark the text. Use the ideas found in "How to Really Read This Book" (available in the "Course Materials" section of the class web page) for ideas on how and what to mark. Note that it contains suggestions for marking a text you don't own as well as ones you do. It might help to read the paper topic linked to the text to have an idea of what information would be most useful to have marked when you sit down to write. Bear in mind that in this class, marking the text should be seen as a way of indicating possible quotations to use as evidence in your paper.
• Set up your document. Begin by following the MLA format for papers (see the final pages of the MLA section of A Pocket Style Manual for MLA format and visually compare your response when finished to the sample paper to ensure you've got it right). Use Times New Roman 12-point font, double spacing, and 1" margins, and include the information (running page numbers in header with last name, your information block, and your title). Don't mess with spacing and other layout features to try and make your document longer or shorter.
• Write your informal, one-page response. Creating no more than a page, write a response to the reading that does the following:
• Starts by identifying a basic issue in the reading in an opening paragraph. It can be a plot question/issue, a "theme" you see in the text, how an aesthetic choice by the author impacts the reader, or what you think the author is trying to say by writing the text. If the text is non-fiction, you can agree with its ideas or disagree with them.  Lay out the main points you want to make about the text.
• In the next paragraph, lay out a specific point as a topic sentence and then give a quotation (with page number) from the text that you think is important to consider in relation to that point. The quotation can be evidence to support your opinion of the piece, or you can use the quotation as a point to be countered by you. Analyze how the quotation manipulates the reader to make its point, or break down why the ideas in the quotation do not stand up to scrutiny.
• In the third paragraph, identify a second quotation and repeat the analytical process used in the second paragraph.
• One quotation should be 1-3 sentences. The other quotation should be 4 or more lines long. Look up how to deal with longer quotations in MLA style in A Pocket Style Manual.
• This response is "informal": you do not need to do a deep revision, nor do you need to be as controlled in your use of language in the response as you would in a formal paper. I do, however, need to be able to understand it—and so do your classmates. Read over your response before positing it to spot any lines that may not make sense and fix them so that your audience can follow your point.
• Post your response. Save the word processing file to your computer. Then log into Blackboard, go to our class, click on the discussion board, and find the appropriate forum for your response. Click on that forum. You should not see any responses: that's by design: the other responses will become visible once you have posted. Click on "Create Thread," and write a subject line that relates to the actual point you are making, not just "My response" or the title of the text you are responding to. Copy and paste your response into the "message" box. Then attach a copy of the MS Word file as well to create a backup to your file. Make sure you click "submit" and not "save as draft" when you post it.
• React to two responses from two classmates. Read two of your classmate's comments. My recommendation is to read one by someone in the class whose opinion you value and one person with no responses (or only one or two responses). For each response, read it, click on "reply," and write about half a page of response.  Your responses should do the following:
• Start with a positive comment about their post.
• Engage with the central idea they establish in the first paragraph: do you agree or disagree with their point, and if so, why? If you had not considered their point, how does this make you rethink your view of the text? How might the writer turn this idea into a paper topic (or a supporting point in a paper)?
• Comment on the analysis of each quote: did any of the writer's observations surprise you? Do you think there is an alternative interpretation? If so, what is it?
• You should limit your reaction to a classmate to 0.5 to 0.75 pages.
• Be polite throughout the response: you can propose alternative views without being rude or condescending.
• Remember to click on "submit" rather than "save as draft."

Grading

• Reading Responses: Each reading response is worth up to five points based on degree of effort and depth of analysis. Most people who put effort into it will get a 4 or 5. Folks who offer up a superficial response will get a 2 or 3. Folks who do a response but do not include the three paragraphs will receive a 1. Students who do not submit by the required time will receive a -5. A couple of responses are worth more than five points and are noted on the Daily Assignments: these readings take multiple nights. The individual grades for those readings will be doubled to reflect the ratios for 5-point assignments. Plagiarized responses will lead to an F in the course, so please don't copy and paste a response you found elsewhere on the Internet.

  Responses to Reading Reactions: These are worth 1-3 points each, depending on level of engagement with the writer's ideas. Missing a response to a classmate (you need to do two) results in a zero for those possible points.

What's the Point of Doing All This?

The reading reactions and responses to classmate's reactions do the following:

• Show me that you are familiar with the text and most likely read it.
• Allow you to digest the reading by having to think about it long enough to write a response.
• Require you come up with at least two quotations that you might use in a paper (or reject from use after considering what it says).
• Convey your thoughts to an audience in an informal way, easing you into the mental work needed to develop a topic for a formal paper.
• Engage in "discussion" with others to see how other people's perspectives support, challenge, or refine your own opinions.

I generally run my face-to-face courses with long discussions in class. My goal is to try and recreate that with these responses. I hope they help you to develop more complex reactions to what you read and to find ideas worth writing about both formally and informally.

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Date site created: May 15, 2020