Reading and Writing Journal
Class texts are fiction and nonfiction texts from across the academic disciplines exploring the thematic connections to identity
and metamorphoses. Bring any assigned texts to class with you to each class meeting. Failure to prepare the reading or to bring required course
materials will cause your class participation grade to drop.
Students will complete an on-going reading journal requiring you to reflect, ask questions, focus on significant passages, and
critically respond to texts and prepare for class discussions. The journal is a place for you to take risks as a thinker and writer. You
are expected to carefully read each reading more than once in order to be fully prepared for in class discussion. Bring your texts, annotations and
journal to every class as you may be required to make an entry during class. Annotate EVERY text.
The components and guided directions required in the weekly journal:
Always head the journal with Title, Author, Date
For ONE reading or as otherwise specified:
1. Read and annotate the text. Text “reading” require multiple observances – allow time to read and reread.
2. Summarize: 1-2 sentences max. A synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of writing, restated in your own words.
3. Identify the argument: The identification of the argument should be specific and concise but pointed directly to the
writer’s thesis, stated or implied, the “main insight or idea about a text or topic, and the main proposition” (G. Harvey,
“Elements of the Academic Essay”).
4. Identify a specific quote from the text, a “point of interest” and add it to the entry: observe, examine and construct an
analytical comment. How is this quote integral to the text’s thesis and complete argument? This is a probe into the depth of text. Then,
connect the text to another text, the course themes and build your ideas.
For ONE OTHER of the readings from the week:
1. Read and annotate the text. Text “reading” require multiple observances – allow time to read and reread.
2. Summarize: 1-2 sentences max. A synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of writing, restated in your own words.
3. Identify the argument: The identification of the argument should be specific and concise but pointed directly to the
writer’s thesis, stated or implied, the “main insight or idea about a text or topic, and the main proposition” (G. Harvey,
“Elements of the Academic Essay”).
4. Identify a specific quote from the text, a “point of interest” and add it to the entry: observe, examine and construct an
analytical comment. How is this quote integral to the text’s thesis and complete argument? This is a probe into the depth of text. Then,
connect the text to another text, the course themes and build your ideas.
5. Choose one of the bullet points to add to your entry as ways to progress an argument or reading of the text. The
entry should be unified in the discussion of the text.
• Observe and comment upon the text’s structure.
• Make a specific observation and analytical comment: Identify one QUOTE observation, a detail from the text you see
an integral to the argument’s claim, then comment. How and why is this observance connected to the argument- what
does it add. This is probe into the depth of text. Find a quote to connect.
• Comment on one passage you found puzzling, interesting, muddy, difficult, humorous, intriguing, contradictory or
similar to your views and explain why you chose that quote.
• Notice language usage: Write at least three vocabulary words that were either new to you in usage or that you found
interesting or striking; define the words OR two sentences of interesting structure/syntax.
• Connect and link the text to the themes, questions and topics of the course and the discussions. How has what you
have analyzed compare or contrast to other texts studied to discern broader themes, similar concepts, and comparable
or contrasting opinions.
• Question the text by writing two questions you think of while reading.
• Respond by your own thoughts and connections to the text. Make a connection to the text from your experience,
from the world around you, or to another text
• Drawings, photos, media links, graphic organizers, or creative musings and connections, all are forms of commentary.
In class: Many weeks there will be a prompt asking you to construct and complete a journal entry exploring the dimensions of
your own identity and you may be asked to write on specific readings during the semester.
You will upload the journal at the end of each week and/or at specified times throughout the semester.
Vocabulary and Grammar: Work in vocabulary development and grammar examination is studied contextually as a means of
evolving the language of academic discourse and clarity in speaking and writing.