Personal response essay

Assignment: Write a personal response to Jean Kilborne’s “Two Ways Women Can Get Hurt”

This response paper should include the following:

1.) Summary of the article

2.) Your position on a main argument from the article

Writing Guidelines

Response papers consist of both summary and critical reflection.

• The summary allows you to demonstrate your knowledge of the reading(s)

• Critical reflection requires you to offer a critique, or further analysis, of a certain argument made by the author(s). You may express your appreciation of a position in combination with your own reasoned argument about why a particular point is especially relevant. You may bring in other materials, readings, or issues from outside the course as a critical lens through which to evaluate and assess the argument. This is your opinion about a topic or point made in the essay.

Your response paper should follow the general pattern: 1) Introduction- context with summary; 2) Critical discussion- your response to an idea in the reading.

1) Introduction: Use your introduction very efficiently. Your opening should contextualize your critical response paper. It should introduce the reading(s) you are responding to, identify the main argument and its relevance.

2) Summary: Your summary should be accurate, coherent, concise, and written in your own words. It is difficult, but you need to limit your summary of the reading, while providing concrete detail. Your goal is not to relate all of the points of the reading, but to focus on the central argument, the most significant claims made by the author, and clarifying supporting detail. Work at keeping the summary concise and powerful, as well as coherent and specific.

3) Critical Discussion: As a starting point, you might evaluate the contribution of the reading to an important debate or issue in the realm of education. You should identify a controversy, problem, or issue that the author addresses and offer your position on the issue. Support your point of view with specific examples or observations.

4) Your conclusion should do more than simply repeat your introduction. Your conclusion should stress the relevance of your point of view about the argument. Instead of summarizing your paper, aim to answer the “so what?” or “who cares?” question in your conclusion. Create a sense of closure, but there’s no need to write a generic “concluding paragraph.”

Your response papers should be proofread, free of grammatical errors, thoughtful, well-written, and clearly organized.