Writing Homework Help

(Directions from )Three paragraph Prompt:

(re “Why Cellphone Videos of Black People’s Deaths Should Be considered Sacred, Like Lynching Photographs”)

Personal Response – All about you and your experiences: Your next paragraph is your chance to get personal with the information from the article. Find some way of connecting your views and your experiences with the information or the examples from the reading. Feel free to use your own personal ideas and experiences when completing a personal response, and make sure to find some way to incorporate your experiences or values. This is also the correct forum for agreement or disagreement with the authors of your article, though make sure that your response is appropriate in tone and level of formality for college writing. 

How to Write a Personal Response in College (one paragraph)

In a personal response you describe and analyze your own thoughts and feelings about a reading. The personal response is usually one of the first assignments in a beginning writing course. It teaches you to think about what you are reading and then ask yourself why you feel that way. 

FIRST consider:

How is the work related to problems/ issues in our present-day world?

How is the material related to your life, experiences, feelings and ideas? For instance, what emotions did the work arouse in you?

Did the work increase your understanding of an issue? Did it change your perspective in any way?

Evaluate the merit of the work: the importance of its points, accuracy, completeness, organization, etc.

SECOND  Read and Annotate Read through the assigned material. Think about how it makes you feel as you read it, and take ten minutes after you finish reading to think about what you just read.

Read through the material again. This time, make comments in the margins. Write down questions, impressions and feelings that you have. Make note of ideas you agree or disagree with, as well as statements that seem to contradict each other or that do not make sense. Underline words, phrases and paragraphs that interest you and comment on why you find them interesting. Note ideas and words that come up repeatedly.

Go back through the material a third time and make more comments. Try to expand on your previous comments and answer your previous questions. By this point, you should have a strong understanding of the material and your ideas about it. If not, continue reading and annotating until you do.

THIRD  Writing Process To begin the writing process, try freewriting. Look over your annotated copy of the reading and your comments. Sit for 15 or 20 minutes and write down any thoughts that come to mind without worrying about grammar or structure. Think of how you feel and try to explain why. Go through what you have written and look for good ideas and strong arguments. Choose a few of these.

Decide which ideas are your main ideas and grouping ideas that support those main ideas under them. This is a good chance to look for problems before you spend the time writing. Do the ideas make sense? Can you support or illustrate them with quotations from the reading? Is any information missing? Consider, too, how you’ll organize your ideas so that each one flows logically from the previous idea.