A reader response essay is a type of essay that requires the student to respond to the text by providing their own opinion on the topic and supporting it with examples and evidence. This type of response essay can be written in response to a book, article, speech, or any other piece of writing The introduction will make your audience decide if they want to keep reading your response essay or not. This is why it is important that you keep in mind the following tips: Introduction is all about catching your audience’s attention. It should provide a brief description of the blogger.comted Reading Time: 12 mins 22/08/ · Your response should be paragraphs which give details from the story as well as the reader's own thoughts to back up the ideas. Sample Thesis In spite of the fact that Adrian himself is not completely sure about his decision to get a dragon tattoo on his back, his article is a persuasive argument in favor of tattooing
Response Essay: Writing Guide and Expert Tips
Virginia has been a university English instructor for over 20 years. She specializes in helping people write essays faster and easier. By AgnosticPreachersKid Own work [CC-BY-SA Reading Response Essays are like writing down what should be happening in your head as you read something.
They help you understand the essay so that you can use it in your paper. Here are the main questions you need to answer:.
The following "Sample Response Essay" was written as part of an in-class exercise I did with my freshmen college students. Each student wrote a response and we compiled the best comments into one essay.
I then took the essays from both classes and wrote up the following example. The essay responds to "Let's Stop Scaring Ourselves" by Michael Crichton, reader response essay. The article was originally published in Parade Magazine on December 5, reader response essay, html ], reader response essay. In his essay, "Let's Stop Scaring Ourselves," Michael Crichton addresses the reader response essay that during his lifetime, Americans have become burdened and consumed by highly publicized fears which turned out to be false alarms.
Crichton details of the many of the global scares he has witnessed, which include many predictions which are mutually exclusive such as the scare for global cooling followed by the scare about global warming.
He notes that at one time we were worried about overpopulation and mass starvation, and, at another, by the decline in the workforce and aging population.
Worries about robots creating too much leisure time have evolved into worries about smart phones creating overworked and stressed Americans. In addition, Crichton details many "non-events" such as swine flu, Y2K and brain cancer from cell phone use.
In conclusion, Crichton suggests that readers follow his example to take the next doomsday prediction with a grain of salt. Map of Jurassic Park, reader response essay. Michael Crichton's novelistic scare. html or CC-BY As a popular author of modern scare stories like Jurassic Park and Andromeda Strain, Crichton's perspective that we have let our fears get out of control is ironic and effective, reader response essay. Initially introducing himself as a year-old man, Crichton gives the sense that he is trying to give advice to the younger generation.
Crichton also effectively uses his life story by opening the essay from his perspective as a younger man constantly plagued by worry over the latest, highly publicized fears.
Although at times he sounds like a ranting, senile old man, Crichton's smooth and sensible writing appeals to reason and simplicity and makes the reader want to agree.
His abundant and various examples assist in emphasizing his point that Americans do have a tendency to over-react. The examples also distract the reader from focusing on his thesis, which can make his article seem more like a rant.
The author brings the reader along with him as he moves through the laundry list of 20th-century fears, poking fun at the exaggerated extremes of these claims through sarcasm as he describes the ever-switching pendulum of panic and public opinion. While assuming an audience who is roughly his age and has experienced these same scares, he gives enough details to convince even a younger audience to take his advice to keep things in perspective.
People wearing masks. Fear of SARS or Swine flue causes many people to wear face masks. By Gabriel Synnaeve originally posted to Flickr as IMGP [CC-BY-SA Do I agree with Michael Crichton? In many ways, reader response essay, I think he has hit the bulls-eye on an important problem of how the public panics unnecessarily.
Although I'm less than a third of the author's age, I've experienced plenty of angst I probably could have avoided. I remember Y2K, even though I was only 6 years old. In fact, our family even participated, reader response essay, to a certain extent, when we were the recipients of some of the supplies our neighbors had stockpiled what my mother did with the pound container of reader response essay I never did find out!
More recently, I remember the "Mayan Apocalypse" and scares about the Bird Flu. Does that mean my generation is off the hook? Do we need to think about how to solve world problems? That is where I think that Michael Crichton's argument may fall short. While I do believe that concerns about overpopulation, climate change and running out of natural resources can be overwrought and ineffective, I do know we live in a world which has limitations, and that while Crichton's generation has staved off the final reckoning, my generation may find that more difficult.
What can we do? I reader response essay Crichton is right in saying we need to avoid irrational panic over the latest scare, but I reader response essay think we need to keep our eyes out and our minds and hands busy keeping potential Armageddons of the future at bay. Still stumped at what to write? Look for reader response essay from other people to the same article.
Here are a variety of responses to the essay. Another way to help formulate your response is to look for other things the author has written on the same subject. For example, shortly before his death, Michael Crichton spoke at The Independent Institute about the "State of Fear" reader response essay the U. In his talk, he gives a detailed explanation of how he came to formulate the ideas for "Let's Stop Scaring Ourselves.
This excellent and humorous speech gives many more details about why Crichton suggests we should worry less than we do. Hi Barbara, I turned 40 in the yearand I started teaching College English in so I've actually been teaching 25 years, but who's counting? The above response example was part of an in-class exercise written by my students.
Those students were 6 at Y2K! My oldest daughter was 5 at the time. Were you really six years old during Y2K? How is that possible if you have taught at the college level for 20 years? I hope that is a misprint. Your article introduces a very interesting exercise for comprehension and expression. Thanks for the illustrations. Voted Up and Useful. Your very welcome, Virginia. You do good work teaching students to do this. My wife teachers a similar, reader response essay, but more advanced course on how to write a research paper, and I guest lecture to help them know that writing can be fun, not just an assignment, reader response essay.
Keep teaching! SidKemp--Thanks for such a thoughtful answer. You are absolutely right about the importance of learning how to do Reader Response.
I have actually been very surprised to find that my college freshman students have a very difficult time doing this assignment. That is partly why I've developed so many hubs to help them and they are some of my most popular ones. Secondly, I think you are absolutely right about Crichton's ironic switch from someone who exploited fears and then tells us not to worry.
However, as I've now reached my 50s, I do understand how you begin to see things from a different perspective as we develop experience over time. Thank you so much for reminding everyone that Y2K was not a "non-issue" but rather one that was solved by many people working hard and smart over a number of years. The Research Paper assignments that I give my students are all about how to solve world problems.
I really believe that this generation of students needs to know that they can make a difference. Thanks again! Thanks for an interesting exploration of an excellent topic.
I have three thoughts: I would like to see a world where everyone could write a Reading Response Essay by age 10 5th grade. I think if we were all trained in understanding what we hear and read and deciding for ourselves, the world would be a better place. In particular, we would be less afraid, reader response essay.
Second: I think that Michael Crichton came to his realization a bit too late - after a lifetime creating and profiting from the problem he then encouraged us to reader response essay creating! He helped create, then fed, America's addiction to fear of the destruction of the world.
In fact, it was the original release of his first reader response essay, Andromeda Strain, reader response essay, that got me worried! Still, better late than never, and I'm glad for his encouragement to end the fear. Third, while fear, itself, is not valuable, reader response essay, genuine concern is important.
Of the various crises you mentioned, I know one from my own experience could have been real, and was averted. I spent 3 years of my life helping to reader response essay the Y2K computer bug from causing reader response essay. My own work helped prevent nuclear shut-downs, a collapse of the global financial markets, and problems with food distribution.
I worked with companies that would have failed - leaving many unemployed - during that time. Overall, Y2K didn't happen, reader response essay, but it was due to hard work. It was the largest peacetime effort to prevent disaster at least since the Marshall Plan after WW II, which was also a success. Reader response essay, I say, let's get educated, stop being afraid, and make a good and realistic difference for a better future. On the other hand, maybe I'm just getting old!
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Reader Response Essay Example ENGL 1301
, time: 20:01Reader-Response Criticism // Purdue Writing Lab
Before you even get to this thesis statement, for example, the essay should begin with a "hook" that grabs the reader’s attention and makes them want to read on. Examples of effective hooks include relevant quotations ("no man is an island") or surprising statistics ("three out At its most basic level, reader-response criticism considers readers' reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A critic deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminist lens, or even a structuralist lens Reading Response Essays are like writing down what should be happening in your head as you read something. They help you understand the essay so that you can use it in your paper. Here are the main questions you need to answer:Author: Virginia Kearney
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