Purpose: Your purpose will be to write a critique of the book or play that you selected by your author for the Yearlong Project Portfolio. You will need to use criteria to evaluate whether you deem the book/play to be worthwhile, entertaining, and effective or something you would never recommend.
Specifications:
 Your critique will need to be 2 pages long (double spaced) and focus on the book or play you read. The critique can be either positive or negative.
 The introduction should establish what is being evaluated and any important information that your audience needs to know about the text. In addition, your introduction should have a clear thesis statement that lets your audience know whether or not you would recommend the book and why.
 The body of your paper should clearly critique the plot, the characters, the conflict(s), and the style of writing.
 Your critique needs to apply clear criteria (what specifically makes it good or bad) to the text to support the evaluation of each area listed above. There should be concrete reasons for the judgment.
 Interesting, vivid, specific, and concise details should be incorporated to describe the text and entertain readers. These details will serve to support your evaluation, but should not just be a summary of your story.
 A clear evaluation should be present in the critique. It should either tempt readers to read the text or persuade them not to.
 The critique should include a clear conclusion that re-states your thesis and offers a wrapup to your paper.
 Your critique must be formatted in MLA style.
Due Date: Friday, February 5 th
Worth: 100 points

Purpose: After writing your own critique, your purpose in this part of your yearlong project is to find three outside, published reviews to summarize and respond to. You should use the Internet or online databases to find these reviews/essays published about your book. You may find multiple reviews on your particular text, but read a few to find the three that are the most interesting, diverse, entertaining, and/or the ones that contain varying points of view.
Specifications:
 You must find three credible reviews about your book. Please do not just settle for a one paragraph comment posted on an online forum. Look for reviews published in magazines, newspapers, journals, book websites, etc. If you are struggling to find reviews, please make an appointment to see me for additional help. Some of your books will be easier to find reviews on than others, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t reviews out there!
 After reading the review, you will write a 1-2 paragraph summary of at least three main points the author discussed in the review. Your summary should be free from opinion— you should be putting the main points into your own words. Please remember: copy/paste is plagiarism.
 Following your summary, you will write a 1-2 paragraph response that gives your thoughts/opinions about what the writer said in the review. In this section, you are able to use examples from the book to support your opinion, and you are able to agree with or disagree with what the writer said.
 This summary/response should be one paper. You do not need to separate it into labeled
‘summary’/ ‘response’ sections. I should be able to tell which part is the summary and which part is the response if you follow the directions.
 You will write three summary/response papers—one for each review.
 All of your summary/response papers should be formatted in MLA style
 You must staple a printed copy of the review to the summary/response.
Due Date: Friday, March 5 th
Worth: 60 points (20 points for each summary/response)