Reading response
Instructions:
The critical reading response should at a minimum:
• Choose one direct quote from the reading(s) and analyze it.
• You may analyze, dissect, discuss, or contextualize the quote(s) using ideas from class examples, discussions, films, or lectures.
• Avoid a lengthy summary of the reading! You may summarize the reading, but it should not be more that 300 words (at most!).
• You may find the idea of “glasses” helpful (see Williams Reading Guide), eg. what does this particular theorist help us to understand or “see.” Other questions to use might include: “why does this theory matter?”; what is the relevance of this theory to understanding culture or media?”
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For this reading response, students can choose 1 topic from the set of readings below. For each topic, you can use whatever readings we cover that week, and one other. However, the focus must be on the reading from the week(s) you choose to write on.
• Technology(week1): Donna Haraway “Cyborg Manifesto”
• Identity(week2): Richard Dyer “On Whiteness” OR Kimberlé Crenshaw “Intersectionality”
• Bodies(week3): Judith Butler “Bodies that Matter” OR José Muñoz Esteban “Feeling Brown, Feeling Down: Latina Affect, the Performativity of Race, and the Depressive Position”
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The reflection should be about 1200 to 1500 words, and be in MLA style. The critical reading response invites you to delve more deeply into the readings, to examine the writing of a given theorist, and to compare it to the ideas of other theorists.
• No outside research is necessary. You may use these academic websites (see below) to help you dissect or contextualize the reading or topic.
• A thesis statement is optional. The response must be analytical.
• Cite the class readings, lectures, films, and other sources using MLA style.
