human ecology core course

response paper

fall 2007

Response papers for this class give you the opportunity to capture your ideas and go beneath the surface by asking you to write about what you read. While they should be typed and coherent (and spell-checked), response papers do not need to be as structured as formal essays. I'm interested in your analytic skills: your modes of working with what you sense and see, what you think, what you are asking yourself, what you are noticing or being bothered by. I want you to explore that on paper and experience your writing as thinking.

In approaching the response paper, plan to sit down at your computer or journal and address something you can really develop passion and concern about. Choose a question, word, phrase, issue, passage, or idea from the reading and really dig deeply. Read carefully, mark your text up, think about what the words are truly saying, and use this as a starting point for demonstrating your thinking. They should not be essays; they should reflect both deep analytic thought and intellectual risk-taking. Find something that really interests you to explore. Push the idea as far as you can and push yourself. Make a discovery and ensure that your reader will not be bored by what you see and say. Defend your perspective. Above all, the response paper should be intellectually and emotionally satisfying.

Here are some additional guidelines for the paper.

• The paper can be about any aspect of the Great Gatsby. Choose something that's interesting to you.
• You will rewrite/rethink this paper at least once. So don't worry; what matters is the final product and how you develop your ideas as you get there.
• Response papers should be two or, at most, three pages in length.
• The audience you should probably have in mind while writing is: you, me, and the rest of the people in the class. Assume that your audience has read Gatsby.
• I strongly recommend writing in the first person. But you don't have to.
• Your paper should be typed or word-processed.