Reading Responses
Goals:
The purposes of this assignment are two. First, it gives you dedicated space to reflect on your own emotional responses to fiction. Second, it helps you think critically about how and why fiction achieves those responses.
Instructions:
For the novel, you will write one reading response of approximately 300 words. In this response, you will identify one moment from the novel that made you feel something powerful or interesting. This can be anything from being moved to tears; being anxious about a character; laughing aloud; or feeling unsettled. There’s no wrong way to feel! In your response, you will:
1. Describe the feeling the novel evoked in you in as much detail as possible. Feelings are enormously complicated things, and you should try to capture that complexity accurately. For example: the happiness of the Bucks winning the Playoffs is a very different feeling than the happiness of hugging a loved one for the first time in a year, post-pandemic. How would you describe that difference?
• NOTE: Sometimes novels hit us in a place where we are already sensitive! Please do not feel obligated to share any more personal information than you feel comfortable with.
2. By returning to the text, try and figure out, and then explain to the best of your abilities, how the novel evoked this feeling. This means talking about specific literary features of the book, at both the large and small scale. For example, at the large scale, you might talk about how the novel had been building up to a particular plot twist that hit you hard; how the novel had portrayed a particular character you resonated with; or how the novel’s point-of-view drew you into a feeling. At the small scale, you might talk about word choice, sentence order, or figurative language (metaphors, similes, rich descriiption, etc). And remember that large and small-scale literary features are always working together! NOTE: Please include the page numbers of the book you are talking about so I can look up the passage you’re describing.
What am I looking for in this assignment?
The most important thing I’m looking for in this assignment is the depth and thoughtfulness of your reflection on how particular features of a text evoked an emotion. So I’m looking, primarily, for attentive descriiption of the text. These are basically journal entries, so your language does not need to be formal, and I’m not worried about grammar or “standard” English (which is a dubious construction, anyway). So long as I can understand what you mean, you’re good to go.
