HON 110:  Honors Freshman Seminar

Reading Responses

    As part of your participation in class, you will bring written responses to the assigned readings. Why?  In seminar classes, you are expected to be a very active participant.  Reading can be a rather passive activity (although not as passive as watching TV).  Because our class discussion will be based on your responses to a variety of readings, writing about what you have read will help you understand and remember the material better, and give you a chance to examine your own response to what each author is saying.  You can organize your thoughts about the readings by writing about them.  This will improve your ability to fully participate in discussion and build your confidence in writing and logically discussing issues in all of your classes. 

As part of your participation in class, you will be asked to react to the assigned readings in at least one of the following ways:

1. Bring a TYPED, double-spaced formal reading response - about 2 pages = 300-500 words- summarizing what you learned from the reading and explaining why you agree or disagree with the author or how it relates to your own experience.  (worth 3 points; see below)

2. Bring several thoughtful TYPED questions related to the reading(s) to bring up for class discussion.  These questions may highlight where you think the author should have provided more information, where you think the argument is not clear or valid, or other questions that will inspire discussion.  Your questions must reflect an evaluative component to earn full credit (2 points).

3. Write in your journal on some aspect of the reading.  (included in journal grade)

You may be asked to read your responses in class. That's a hint: re-read your paper to improve its presentation; excessive grammatical and spelling errors are one indication of the effort you put into the assignment!  No, this is not an English class, but what better place than freshman seminar to learn how to present your ideas clearly and effectively to a non-English discipline instructor.  Spelling and grammar count now and will for the rest of your life!  

Formal reading responses:

You can earn up to 10 points for formal reading response.  To earn the maximum points, you must include a discussion of all the readings assigned for that day and the discussion must show considerable thought and analysis on your part.  Here' s the scale:

10   Excellent:  Writing shows real thought, analysis and engagement with the reading.  Written in an imaginative manner, nice “turn of phrases.”  (These ratings are rare.)
9 to 9.5  Very Good:  Writing shows real thought analysis, and engagement with the reading.
8- 8.5  Good:  Demonstrates you have read the material and given some thought to how it relates to your experiences.
7-7.5  OK:  You’ve read the material but have not analyzed it.
under 7  Insufficient:  You turned something in, but it is very short and/or superficial.  Try harder!

Unless otherwise stated, you may choose any of these ways to frame your response papers:

• One paragraph summary plus one paragraph response -- what is the reading about and what’s your overall response?
• Pose a question about the reading and answer it
• Compare the current reading to a past reading
• Or, if there is more than one reading for the class- what are the similarities and differences between them
• Think about how the reading relates to your experiences during the semester- your other classes, your own observations, books you are reading, movies you have seen, etc.
• Explain why you (dis)agree with a point(s) the author makes
• Has the reading changed your mind about an idea?
• What questions do you have AFTER reading the reading?

Don’t try to address each of these points in each response.  Different readings will make you think about different response points. Try to consider more than one approach to reacting to the readings over the semester.  Rereading your past responses may help you think about current readings differently too.  If there are multiple readings for one class, you may discuss all readings in one paper.  I would expect this to be more than two paragraphs, though.  You may find you really don’t like what an author says, either because you don’t agree with the argument or the manner in which it is expressed.  That’s fine, and you can say what you don’t like about it, but don’t let that keep you from doing analysis of the points of the essay.  You can say the writer is a fool or a jerk, but convince me on the basis of logical argument.