Summary and Response Essay
Task
For this assignment, you will consider ideas presented in a text, write a focused summary of those ideas, craft a thesis statement outlining your response to an idea presented in the text and then support that response with evidence from the text.
From Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say:
the underlying structure of effective academic writing…resides not just in stating our own ideas but in listening closely to others around us, summarizing their views…and responding with our own ideas in kind. Broadly speaking, academic writing is argumentative writing, and we believe that to argue well you need to do more than assert your own position. You need to enter a conversation, using what others say (or might say) as a launching pad or sounding board for your own views. The best academic writing has one underlying feature: it is deeply engaged in some way with other people’s views (3).
In order to prepare for this paper we will read the following article: “The ‘Other Side’ is Not Dumb” by Sean Blanda (pp. 380-385 in They Say/I Say).
To approach this assignment you will read the text carefully and begin to consider some of the following questions surrounding a focused idea presented in the text:
- As reader, what was your response to that idea? Why?
- What of the author’s appeals to emotions, or reason influence your response?
- Do you trust this author’s knowledge and information? Why or why not?
- What of your own knowledge, biases, or pre-conceived notions of the issue influence your response?
In your draft, briefly summarize the reading and develop your paper in response to one idea presented by the author. You will draw quotations and examples from the text to support your response. Information and ideas that you use to support your ideas should be documented with appropriate MLA or APA style in-text citations and a bibliography.
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