“ ‘Tis the good reader that makes the good book.” 
          —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The South always makes good reading.  It features the virtues and vices, writ large, of the nation as a whole.  It’s good entertainment.  It’s high drama.”
          —Fred Hobson

Your short response papers are designed to let you think over the implications of what you’ve recently read.  A response paper is not a summary of your reading, but a response to it—a way of thinking about the reading.  Responses are not formal papers, but should be carefully written nevertheless.  Be specific about the works you’re discussing, give details to back up any assertions you may make, and finally, pay attention to grammar and mechanics. 

Each response should be at least 750-1000 words, but no more than 1500, and will be due on the day we begin discussion of the novel. A response asks you to consider the work from your own perspective, and then to consider the larger question of the work’s significance.  I don’t expect you to enjoy everything you read this semester (or even necessarily to understand it fully the first time you read it).  But I do want you to read closely and to think hard about why a text is important. 

In your response papers, then, you should discuss without summarizing the importance of the text you’ve just read.  The best short response papers will consider the connections between the texts we’re reading and our class discussions.  How is this text uniquely Southern?  Or do you think it’s not?  How does it relate to other texts we’re studying?  What’s so valuable about this text that we’re spending our time reading it instead of another book?

You may write in a response about why you reacted to a text as you did (if you loved something or hate it, for instance), or about the formal elements of the literature:  language, tone, structure, content, characters, themes, symbols.  You don’t have to write about the entire book; instead you may choose to focus on a small section of the reading:  how does a section or symbol echo the larger meaning of the work? (Do note, though, that I tend to get suspicious if your incident always occurs in the first pages of the text, particularly if the discussion indicates that you didn’t complete the reading). 

Things to avoid doing in your response paper: 

• summarizing the reading (I already know what happened in the work, since I read it too!); 
• saying you loved something (without explaining what elements of the text provoke a strong reaction in the reader); 
• saying you didn’t understand something (without asking focused questions in your response trying to decipher what the author said).

An effective response will demonstrate that you have thoroughly read and understood the reading (or that you ask questions that reveal careful reading).  It will develop connections between the reading and the themes of the course and demonstrate that you have considered the implications of the readings.  It may suggest questions for class discussion.  The writing will be clear and will be largely correct.  While this assignment may sound a bit daunting—what does she want me to write about again?—it’s designed to give you a lot of flexibility to think about our course readings and to express your own ideas strongly in our class discussions.  There is no one correct way to write a response; I really want to hear about your ideas about what we’re reading, but I want you to analyze those ideas and the reading carefully.  Ultimately most writers not only enjoy responses, but also find that they’re a good grade-booster at the end of the semester; see your course policy for the amount responses count towards your final grade. 

Responses should be single-spaced, and prepared in Microsoft Word documents, which you will submit through Blackboard. Before submitting your file, please name it using this format:  Your last name Your first name Author’s last name response.  If I were turning in the first reading response, for example, my file should be named “Hammond Lisa Earley response.doc.” 

Please use the following format for the header on the first page of your response (no title pages, please): 

Your Name 
Response Paper
18 September 2007  
Tony Earley
Somehow Form a Family

You’ll submit your responses through Blackboard under Assignments.  Please log into Blackboard, and then in the My Courses box, click on the course title “Fiction” (be sure you don’t click on any announcements, but on the course title).  Click on Assignments, then the name of the novel we’re writing on, and then View/Complete.  You can upload your file from here the way you normally would attach a file through email.  Be sure to click Submit at the end to have the file sent. 

If you have any problems, or if you have a different word processing program besides Word (and Works is not the same as Word, by the way), please see Blackboard Help.  If you have some horrible technical problem and absolutely cannot email me the document, print it and bring it to class on the date it’s due.