Purpose: For your Second essay, you will write a 850 - 1,000 word (heading and works cited page do not count as part of the word count) critical response to at least one of the texts we read in class. This first essay asks you to practice skills you will need to use for the rest of the quarter. Imagine that one of your goals as a student is to read widely and to think critically about the arpuments you encounter in books, on-line articles, opinion pieces, etc.. You may have read essays, plays, poems, stories, letters, and other genres before, but now yvou want to take the next steps toward a college level experience with critical approaches to ideas and issues in writing. Remember that everything is an argument, even the fiction, poems, and opinions we read in class. This assignment asks you fo read rhetorically and develop a strong response to ideas you identify in a text selected from the several we have read thus far. You'll then use that response to draft a closed-form, thesis-based essay. You'll support that essay with points that develop your argument (your argument for this essay 1s how you feel about the writing: is it good? Why or why not? Is the point of the story a good one? Etc) so readers understand how you arrived at your thesis. You will also present particulars from your selected essay that either support or contradict your thesis. Throughout the essay, you will document (use MLA formatted source citations) all information that originates from these outside sources. You will also produce a works-cited page that lists the text you chose to use in addition to one other text. Please try to use proper MLA format for this page. I want you to write this essay so that you can show your critical understanding of the readings, and your ability to show your thinking to readers. Directions: Write a critical response essay that includes: (a) a short summary of an identified and selected text; (b) a strong response to the text (either in support or in opposition to its ideas) in which you respond with your own critical thinking, personal experience, other texts, and values. As you formulate your response, consider both the author's rhetorical strategies and the author's ideas. Think of your response as your analysis of how the text tries to influence its readers rhetorically and how your wrestling with the text has expanded and deepened your thinking. Additionally, if you feel it fruitful. you can use one of the other readings we did in class or one that you picked in order to elucidate your views on the primary text Your essay should (in other words. use the following as a checklist of things your essay should. Be doing): -Summarize at least one of the texts we have read so far -Analyze that text and Respond to it critically Provide a thesis statement (what do you think of the text?) Provide support for your thesis using personal experience Provide support for your thesis USING the primary text -Organize paragraphs coherently -Show awareness of rhetorical situation and rhetorically strategies Cite all sources using proper MLA citation style Format paper in proper MLA format -Provide a properly cited works cited page.Writing Center information can be found here Some advice: When you write a response essay that uses a single source, you must be careful to balance the writer's ideas with your own. Imagine yourself in partnership with the author, using his/her 1deas and arguments as a base from which to launch your own. Overall, though, it 1s your voice that should dominate your draft. Your thesis and the points that support 1t should be based on your own opinions and written in your own words. Your essay will have a connection to our discussions in class: these articles were selected based on their relationship to the theme of this Project (education and culture). You may also use other outside readings for supporting your ideas or supplementing your own opinions or experiences. Don't forget you can go to the writing center during any phase of the writing process for help. Don't forget I have office hours to help you better understand and help you with your essay. Don't forget I have an email address where you can write me quick questions. Don't forget you have my phone number to call or text me concerns or to clear up confusion. Readings (You can pick anvthing we have read whether on this list or not): Paulo Freire \"The Importance of the Act of Reading\" Melinda Anderson \"The Economic Imperative of bilingual Education Ta-Nehisi Coates \"If I were a Black Kid. . .7 Adam Grant \"What a Straight A Student Gets Wrong\" Stanley Fish \"What Should Colleges Teach Vershawn Ashanti Young \"Should Writers Use They Own English?\" Gloria Andalziia \"To Live on the Boderland Cody Cottier \"From Mouth to Mind: How Language Governs Our Perceptions of Gender\" Adam Conover \"Why Grammar Rules Aren't Always Exact\