[Literary] criticism is not some inscrutable, mysterious process. It’s just a matter of: (1) noticing ourselves responding to a work of art, and (2) getting better at articulating that response.
—George Saunders, from A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, p. 60
The purpose of a Personal Response is to give you a chance to practice the two skills identified by George Saunders: 1) noticing (becoming aware, becoming conscious) of your responses to what you read, and 2) being able to put those responses into words.
It is therefore 100% useless and beside the point for you to seek out help in writing a Personal Response. If you do not do the work yourself, you are just wasting your time and energy.
Guidelines
- Do NOT write a plot summary.
- Do NOT tell me what the Google says.
- Write your honest personal response to the text.
- What does it make you think about?
- What feelings follow from those thoughts? Checking the questions on the introductory handout may give you some ideas.
- Edit and proofread your work before publishing it. Check particularly for those writing errors that you have made in the past.
- Length: 300 words minimum; 500 words, maximum.
- You will have no trouble achieving the minimum word count if you provide specific, detailed examples from the text to support your claims.
- Include page citations for every quotation and every reference to the text. Format the page citations properly, in parentheses at the end of a phrase or sentence, e.g., (p. 27) or (pp. 27-29).
- Category: The unit (1, 2, or 3) in which the text is studied.