REACTION PAPER
paper should be no more than one page
Article from a print newspaper or online news story
include name, author and publication of article
1. Introduction – Describe what you are reacting to – what you read in the article that was compelling to you. This part should be objective (based on fact and NOT opinion.)
2.
The body of your reaction paper
a. detail – what exactly are we talking about (the intro but detailed)
b. commentary – what’s your opinion about the content you’re presenting ( this part is subjective)
c. reaction – what do you feel (what surprises you or makes you angry, sad,
3. Conclusion
The teacher would want to discover two things from the student:
a. what the student learned
b. what is the reaction to what was learned
The reaction paper is tied not only to the mind of the author of the article being read but also the student who writes it as well. The student must own the reaction paper
The “summary of the article” is a quick two-to-three-sentence summary of the article. This launches your reaction paper to serious business. A good summary announces to the teacher that this reaction paper is treated with serious scholarly goals.
Many students look at the word “thesis” as an ominous term. In a reaction paper, the thesis is simply a proposition to the readers of your reaction. All one has to do is to look for feeling words that would serve as the reaction to the article. For example, “Carson’s survey gives me a sense of displeasure on the nature of the protests of the emergent church leaders.” You reason for this thesis will be supplied by the brief reactions found in every point raised in the body of the paper.
Writing the Body of Your Reaction Paper
This is the part where you will explain your summary and defend your “reaction” based on the parts of the article.
The structure of every argument here are as follows: (1) detail, (2) commentary, (3) reaction. “Detail” means the idea that supports the summary above.
In “Commentary” you have to defend the detail using direct or indirect quotes from the article. In short, it’s a commentary of the detail. “Reaction” is a 1-2 sentence-reaction to justify your thesis above concerning the topic being discussed here.
Writing the Conclusion of the Reaction Paper
Now that the hard work is over, all the student needs to do is to restate the thesis here defended by the three “reactions” on your body. Just copy and paste ,then list or write down what you said in the “reaction” Then add the remaining list of “reactions.”
The teacher wants to discover if the student follows rules and the student does it well. In this short article, the rules are set out and some of the style put out to help in the process of writing the reaction paper.