Reader-response analysis seeks to reveal the activity of the reader as contributing to—even completing—the meaning of a text by applying their own experiences, perspectives, and cultural values. A reading response asks the reader (you) to examine, explain, and defend your position in regards to a reading.

Points to Consider

You may be asked to:

1. Discuss what you respond to strongly from the reading, and extend to explain and defend that response
2. Explain your position in regards to the author’s ideas
3. Identify the reading’s purpose and analyze the writer’s success in proving their purpose
4. Critique the text. Discuss the language, structure, and significance of the text.

As with most academic writing, there is no “correct” answer to a reading response. Yet, it is important that you demonstrate an understanding of the reading and clearly explain and support your position.

Criticize with Examples

• Criticize a text from principle:
  •  Is it racist, or it unreasonably puts down religion, or women, or working people, or young people, or gays, or Texans, or plumbers? Does it include factual errors or outright lies? Does it include bias? Is it too dark and despairing, or is it falsely positive?
• Criticize a text regarding form:
  •  Is it poorly written (how?), does it contains too much verbal “fat,” is it too emotional or too childish (describe), does it contain too many facts and figures (explain), does it have many typos in the text, or does it wander around without making a point?

In each of these cases, do not simply criticize, but give examples. Always be aware, as a beginning scholar, of criticizing any text as “confusing” or “boring,” as these are not academic responses. If you disagree, show it, and prove it. It is your responsibility to understand the text as fully as possible.

Ways to Connect to the Text

Try to address the questions below. Remember, however, that you are writing an essay, and therefore need to include explanation, discussion, and support.

These questions are not a shopping list: you do not need to work through these questions in order, one by one, in your essay. Rather, your paper as a whole should address some of these questions in some way, depending on what your instructor asks for.

• How much does the text agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong? Use several quotes as examples of how it agrees with and supports what you think about the world/about right and wrong/about what you think it is to be human.  Use quotes and examples to discuss how the text disagrees with what you think about the world.
• What did you learn, and how much were your views and opinions challenged or changed by this text, if at all?  Did the text communicate with you? Why or why not?  Give examples of how your views might have changed or been strengthened (or perhaps, of why the text failed to convince you). Please do not write too broadly, for example, “I agree/disagree with everything the author wrote,” since nothing is absolute. Use quotes to illustrate your points of challenge, how the text persuaded you, how the text challenged you, how the text fails to persuade.
• How well does the text address things that you, personally, care about and consider important to the world? Does it address things that are important to your family, your community, your ethnic group, to people of your economic or social class or background, or your faith tradition?  If not, who does or did the text serve? Did it pass the “So What?” test?  Use quotes to illustrate.
• What can you praise about the text? What problems did you have with it? Reading and writing “critically” does not mean the same thing as “criticizing,” in everyday language (complaining or griping, faultfinding, nit picking). Your “critique” can and should be positive and praise the text if possible, as well as pointing out problems, disagreements and shortcomings.
• How well did you enjoy the text (or not) as entertainment or as a work of art? Use quotes or examples to illustrate the quality of the text as art or entertainment. Of course, be aware that some texts are not meant to be entertainment or art: a news report or textbook, for instance, may be neither entertaining nor artistic, but may still be important and successful.
• What is your overall reaction to the text? Would you read something else like this, or by this author, in the future or not?  Why or why not?  To whom would you recommend this text?

When writing a reader response, write as a scholar addressing fellow scholars.  Remember to write interestingly about something that is interesting to you. Use formal language, appropriate quotes and citations, and prove your point with evidence.

More Tips Regarding How to Respond:

Some questions to ask yourself:

• What ideas do you find resonant to your life? How? Why? In what ways? (Even if you don’t like the essay, you should still be able to find something interesting about it.)
• Do you agree with the author’s “message”? You can also evaluate and/or challenge the essay in this paragraph.
• Is the author’s purpose achieved? How well does the author prove her/his argument?
• What could someone on the other side of this argument say, and how valid would that criticism be? What flaws in logic do you see in the author’s argument?

Some Language Use Advice:

If you say, “The author . . .

• Explains (this suggests the author’s purpose is to explain or inform)
• Argues (this suggests the author is trying to persuade)
• Claims (this suggests the author is trying to persuade; further suggests you don’t buy what the author is saying)
• Informs (this suggests expository writing)
• Persuades (this suggests persuasive writing)
• Exposes (this suggests the author’s purpose is to investigate something hidden)
• Teaches (this suggests the author is explaining or informing)
• Narrates (this suggests the author is telling a personal story)
• Relates (this suggests the author’s purpose is to explain through comparison)
• Distinguishes (this suggests the author’s purpose is to explain by contrasting topics)
• Compares (this suggests the author’s purpose is to draw similarities between topics)
• Contrasts (this suggests the author’s purpose is to find differences between topics)
• Warns (this suggests the author’s purpose is to persuade through caution)
• Suggests (this suggests gently persuasive writing)
• Implies (this suggests persuasive writing and further suggests that you are skeptical about the author’s motivations and/or implications)

Continue Reading: 15.3 Approaches to Response