Critical Response Papers (CRPs). Two 4pp (minimum) critical response papers will be due this semester. CRPs should at least touch upon one of the required readings covered in a given week, but you may also wish to address other required readings and/or additional recommended readings and/or music clips via Blackboard. Finally, you also may want to [hint, hint] draw upon other relevant research and scholarship in these papers, which will entail a certain “added” initiative (a trip to the actual or virtual library, perhaps?) on your part.

Things to consider in writing your CRPs:

• Isolate specific concepts/themes/concerns in the text(s) that most piqued your interest. How are these concepts/themes/concerns articulated, or analyzed, by the author(s)?
• Address the key claims or main arguments toward which these concepts/themes/concerns flow?
• With what aspects of the readings do you agree or disagree? (or neither, or both) Why? (Support your analysis.)
• Are there any broader assumptions, worldviews, guiding principles operating (whether implicitly or explicitly) in/around/behind the text(s) that seem particularly relevant?
• Are there other theories, concepts, themes not directly covered in the text(s) that you feel might be relevant?
• What sense do you have of the contemporary relevance of the ideas presented in the text(s)?