Draft #1 Summary/Response

Let's check on the rhetorical situation here:

Genre: summary/response essay which is very similar to a book or movie review.

Audience: someone who has NOT read the original (so they would not need to). This is an artificial requirement; many of your readers WILL have read the article, but you are writing as though we had not.

Purpose: to provide a clear, unbiased account of the article, and then share your reaction to it.

Homework:

1. Reread your article and work on revising your draft. The second draft is due on Tuesday.

2. I'll be checking journals next week also. You'll need at least twenty vocabulary words plus assigned work (see past entries of this blog.)

Summary/Response

Draft #1 is due tomorrow. You MUST have both some summary and some response in this draft to get credit for it.

Go work on it now.

Homework:

1. Create Draft #1 of your Summary/Response.

2. One vocabulary word. You should have 20 words by the end of this week. I will be checking journals next week for midterm grades.

Summary/Response Examples

I hand out two examples of Summary/Response papers that meet this assignment.

You read the first one and label the places where this writer includes the items listed on the back of your assignment sheet for this paper.


Here are links to the articles that the two handouts refer to:

Barbara Ehrenreich's "Teach Diversity--with a Smile"

"'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey"

Homework:

1. Continue to read your article. In your journal create a page of notes that pin down the main point and present the organization of the article-- graphically, if you prefer. List the author's support or sources; decide which are key and which don't need to be mentioned.

2. One vocabulary word.

Summaries

First of all, we figure out which article you are going to be reading.

We look at pages 115-117 in Everyday Writer. When you read your article, think about its structure, and ask as many questions as you can. Don't be passive!

Then you read a handout and do some work with it.

Homework:

1. Print off your article in the lab and read it several times. Begin marking your copy with questions, labels, and structural cues. The first draft of your Sum/Resp to this article is due this Friday.

2. One vocabulary word.

Turn in Memory--Begin Summary/Response

You turn in the final version of your Memory essay.

Then we discuss the next assignment -- Summary/Response.

Articles to choose from:

Link to "How David Beats Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell. (How can underdogs win?)

Link to "Hellhole" by Atul Gawande. (Is solitary confinement torture?)

Link to "Troublemakers" by Malcolm Gladwell. (Pit bulls and profiling.)

Link to "Most Likely to Succeed" by Malcolm Gladwell. (How do you hire a 'winner'?)

Link to "What Helen Keller Saw" by Cynthia Ozick. ( Controversy in Helen Keller's lifetime.)

Link to "The Itch" by Atul Gawande. ( The neuroscience of itching. Haunting hook.)

Link to "Offensive Play" by Malcom Gladwell. (How similar are football and dogfighting?)

Link to "Personality Plus" by Malcom Gladwell. (How useful are employers' personality tests?)

For tomorrow, you must look at these articles and make a first choice and second choice. Tomorrow we'll find out which are the most popular and choose accordingly, so that each article has at least two people writing about it.