Part 1: The Summary Section (about 80 words)
In your Part 1 of your Daily Log, you will write a summary of the text you read. In general, a summary is written in your own words, is radically shorter than the original, is objective and accurate (no opinion just focus on the facts) and communicates its overarching theme, main idea, supporting points and significant details. Your summary should include the following:
The full name of the writer (use the last name of the author in subsequent mention)
The title of the piece in quotation marks if it is an essay
The essay’s topic, what it is about
The essay’s purpose(s), why it might have been written
The piece’s thesis/main idea
Supporting points
Significant details
Part 2: The Response Section (about 100-150 words)
In your Part 2, you will develop your response/reaction to the text. Here you’ll develop your ideas, opinion about the text. Once the essayist has had her say, it’s time for your say. You have far more freedom here, though you still, of course, want to be fair, giving the writer the benefit of the doubt, sympathetically trying on her ideas.
To make your response easier and even more clear, you can select one of the following options to respond: Think of responding as 1. asking questions (What?, Who? How?, Why?), 2. making connections (This makes me think of… or This reminds me of… or This is similar to…), 3. considering ways your own experience matches or contrasts with the author. You may also want to 4. connect the piece to things you’re learning in other classes, other texts you’ve read, or films and other popular culture it may relate to.
Part 3: The Style Section (about 80 words)
In your Part 3, you will notice a detail about the writer’s skills. This course is as much about the how as it is the what of a piece. In other words, when you summarize and respond to a text, you are examining what it says, primarily its subject matter. But the ways it says are almost as important as what it is trying to communicate. How we use language affects the success of our communication. I’d like you to use the readings as models for your own writing. So in this section, I’d like you to do the following:
identify one or more things you see the writer doing that you’d like to try in your own writing;
specifically illustrate how the writer is using the technique; and
explain how the technique is effective, what it accomplishes (what, for instance, it makes the reader think or feel or understand).
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