Read over the specific guidelines for the assignment given by your instructor. If you have any questions, ask your teacher before you start writing. The assignment instructions offer a guide as you begin the reading and writing process. Is your paper expected to answer specific questions? Are you allowed to create a personalized, open-ended response essay? Understanding the parameters of the assignment gives you a focus as you read the assigned text.
As you read the text, underline or highlight passages that are intriguing or that apply to specific questions you need to address. If you do not want to mark up your text, make notes on a separate sheet of paper. Be sure you record the page numbers of the passages. Also, write down any questions or thoughts you have about the passages. This helps preserve your initial responses to the text.
The purpose of the essay is to document your response to a text. Does the author support your view of the world or offer a differing viewpoint? What is the overall purpose of the text? Were your opinions challenged by the work? These questions can help form the basis of your introduction. Create an introductory paragraph that gives the title and author of the work. Establish a thesis that shows your overall reaction to what the author is trying to accomplish in the text. Then, use the body of the paper to develop the ideas presented in the thesis.
While there is no one right answer when writing a reading response essay, you do need to illustrate how you reached your conclusions by referring to specifics from the text. Show how your interpretation makes sense in the context of the whole work. In the body of the essay, use quotes and specific scenes to illustrate how you arrived at your response.
The most common mistake in a reading response essay is to spend too much time in plot summary. The point of this type of paper is that you analyze the text rather than summarize it. Assume that the reader has read the text as well and does not need a plot reiteration. Also, while quotes from the text are used to support your ideas, don't use long quotes in order to lengthen the paper. This weakens the entire essay.