Sometimes called a reaction paper or reader response, writing an article response for this class essentially asks you to read, react, and analyze a text as a reader. The keyword here is response, which is as much about you as it is about the chosen article. It is meant to be personal. You get to be the critic, making connections and judgments about the text, then sharing them with the public. However, being critical doesn’t mean complaining or whining, nor does it simply trying to find every fault or error in the text.
Keep in mind there are no right answers in your response. Rather, it is you demonstrating your understanding, with clear explanation and support for your reactions. It requires critical reading and thoughtful writing, but without some of the formalities of a typical or traditional academic essay. You have a lot more freedom with the style and structure.
Make sure that the title, author, and main point of the article are clearly stated early in your piece. You should also include the publication title as well. Remember, article titles are in quotations, while publication titles are underlined or italicized, for example “Is Google Making Us Stupid” from The Atlantic. Also, since your responses are being posted to your blog, embed hyperlinks, whenever possible, to the actual article online and the publication.
Write as though the person reading your response has read the article, you have even provided a link to the source after all. This means you do not have to summarize the article at length. You already will have established the article’s main point in a sentence or two, so summarizing is not necessary.
Since the emphasis is on the personal, you need to explore and explain what the text has to do with you, personally, with your life, be it your past, present or future. It really isn’t credible to write that the text has nothing at all to do with you. Since you are a thinking and feeling human just about anything another human being writes offers a potential connection. The challenge is whether or not you are willing to find one. What’s more, there is no excuse when you get to choose the article.
Consider how much the text complements or clashes with your point of view on the world. Consider what you believe to be good or bad, likable or dis-likable, right or wrong. Find some quotes that specifically show how the article fits or doesn’t with your world view, what you like or don’t like. Just don’t stop there. You need to write more than likes and dislikes.
Think about what you might have learned from reading the article or how it might have challenged or strengthened your views, opinions, or beliefs. Determine how much the text convinced you about something or simply resonated with you and provide examples of how and why this worked. Just as you cannot claim that the article has nothing to do with you, the converse is also true. You cannot simply claim to agree with everything the author wrote. You should feel free to challenge the text, just substantiate your challenges.
Always consider to what extent the article addresses things that you, personally, believe are important. This could easily include what your family, friends, or community also consider important for one reason or another. Make sure that you use quotes from the article to help make things clear. Also, always ask yourself, “Why should anyone care?” as you write. If you don’t care, in a clear and obvious way, than what is the likelihood that anyone else will an why would anyone bother to read your work?
On a general level, think about whether you enjoyed reading the article. If it was particularly entertaining or well-crafted, find examples or quotes that highlight these aspects. Of course not all articles are written with this kind of intent, but when you find it praise it.
Finally, articulate your overall reaction to the text. Here is where you can draw some general conclusions about whether or not you would read more on the topic, by the same author, the same publication, whatever. Make a some kind of definitive statement about whether you think the article was successful or not and whether you would recommend that others read it.
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