WRITING A TEXT-RESPONSE ESSAY
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
• Your major assessment task for this unit is a text
response-essay, which you will complete in week 7
• You will also complete a “hurdle task” in week 5. Hurdle
tasks, though not graded, must be passed for you to pass
the unit
• For both of these tasks, you will have the topic for a few
days prior to writing the essay under timed conditions in
class
Writing a text-response
essay
• Text-response essays require:
• An introduction
• A series of body paragraphs, and
• A conclusion
Writing a text-response
essay
THE ‘RULES’ OF TEXT-RESPONSE
WRITING
Brevity (brief) – why use 10 words when you can use 5?
Don’t refer to the essay in the essay.
Don’t use personal voice (I, we, you).
Don’t list quotes.
Don’t agree or disagree – just present the case.
Don’t retell the story.
Avoid references to your own life or the world. Stay within
the story.
8. A story is like a painting. Everything that appears is there for
a reason.
9. When you make a point support it with evidence.
10. Use connectives to link your ideas and evidence in your
paragraph. Sequence is important.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Ten rules of text-response writing
1. Brevity (brief) – why use 10 words when you can use 5?
Brevity
2. Don’t refer to the essay in the essay.
In this essay I will argue that everyone has special needs.
3. Don’t use personal voice (I, we, you).
This makes you the reader consider how fortunate
Christopher is, despite his lack of “emotional intelligence”.
4. Don’t list quotes, integrate them.
(More on this later).
5. Don’t agree or disagree – just present the case.
I agree that Mark Haddon has attempted to convey the idea
that
6. Don’t retell the story.
Christopher travels to London so that he can stay with his
mother.
Christopher’s journey to London to visit his mother
illustrates the lengths to which the characters will go to
achieve a sense of belonging.
7. Avoid references to your own life or the world. Stay
within the story.
When you meet people with Asperger’s, you can see that
they have trouble understanding social ques.
8. A story is like a painting. Everything that appears is
there for a reason.
Discuss
9. When you make a point support it with evidence.
Evidence includes references to the text, as well as quotes.
10. Use connectives to link your ideas and evidence in
your paragraph. Sequence is important.
Haddon, Haddon, Haddon
Haddon, Furthermore, However
See the wiki for a list of connectives.
TEEEEEEEL: EVERY PARAGRAPH NEEDS
MORE THAN ONE EXAMPLE
Text-response essay writing in Year 10
•
•
•
•
•
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Topic sentence
Explanation
Evidence
Explanation (more)
Evidence (more of this too)
Even more explanation and evidence, (you’re on a roll
now) before you write your
• Linking sentence
TEEEEEEEL
INTEGRATING QUOTES INTO
YOUR TEXT RESPONSE.
Yr 10 English
• Instead of: Christopher’s behaviour makes things hard
for everyone in the household. “I threw my plate and it
hit mother’s toe.”
• Try this: Christopher’s behaviour, including throwing a
plate that “hit mother’s toe,” makes things hard for
everyone in the household.
INTEGRATING quotes
• Instead of: Christopher becomes aggressive in some
situations, for example when the cop touched him, Chris
hit him, “the little bugger just had a pop at me.”
• Try this:.Christopher becomes aggressive in some
situations, for example, when the cop touched him, Chris
“had a pop at” him.
INTEGRATING quotes
• How can you improve the integration of the quote in this
sentence?
• Hint* use fewer words from the quote.
Similarly, the policeman doesn’t understand Chris’s
reaction when he questions him; he “make[s] this noise
when there is too much information coming into [his] head
from the outside world.”
Integrating quotes – your turn
Similarly, the policeman doesn’t understand Chris’s
reaction to “too much information coming into [his] head
from the outside world” during questioning.
Similarly, when Christopher “make[s] this noise when there
is too much information coming into [his] head” during
questioning, the policeman doesn’t understand Chris’s
reaction.
Some suggestions
• Note! When you need to change a letter or a word or two
within a quote, use square brackets.
• For example: Christopher says “I find people confusing”, but
in your essay you might say: Christopher “find[s] people
confusing.”
• Another example: Christopher says “Eight years ago, when I
first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture and I knew that
it meant sad”, but in your essay, you might say: Christopher
Could interpret this facial expression to a limited degree
because Siobhan had “showed [him] this picture and [he]
knew that it meant sad.”
INTEGRATING quotes
The power of ellipsis
• Ellipsis is a series of dots (usually three) that indicate that some
superfluous text has been omitted.
• For example, a policeman says the following to Christopher: “I
strongly advise you to get into the back of the police car because if
you try any of that monkey business again, you little shit, I will
seriously lose my rag.”
Although this is a wonderful piece of dialogue, you don’t need all of it
in your essay, so try using ellipsis like this:
Minor characters are shown responding to Christopher’s behaviour
defensively; a policeman threatens that if Christopher tries “any of that
monkey business… [the policeman] will seriously lose [his] rag.”
Integrating quotes
• And remember!!
• Don’t use quotes out of context.
• If you are using a quote about Christopher’s encounter
with police, don’t use it to support your explanation of his
conflicts with his father.
Integrating quotes