The Response Essay Assignment moves us beyond a general discussion of the ways in which language can function to a more specific focus on the functions of "school language" in people's lives. (Being CO150 students, you are of course acutely aware of how the language school requires of you can function in your own life.) In addition to examining these functions of school language, this assignment includes the following goals:
- learning to read critically
- summarizing a text objectively
- understanding a variety of response techniques and the way that they can be applied to a text
- focusing and supporting a response to a text
- learning to quote and paraphrase effectively
- beginning to understand how ideas from different readings on the same topic can overlap