Purpose
This assignment asks you to combine two common college writing genres: textual analysis and response. Textual analysis requires the use of active reading strategies, which help us discern meaning at deeper levels, including awareness of the rhetorical situation that shapes a text’s meaning and implications. Responding to the ideas and points of view in a text helps readers find connecting points, deepening the meaning-making process. Throughout your college experience, you will use both skills to improve your learning processes and comprehension. After you graduate, you can apply these skills to better understand complicated situations, points of view, and ideas so that you can develop effective solutions.
Writing Task
In her essay, “Sight Unseen,” Georgina Kleege asks her audience to consider new ideas about the labels we often use to construct identity and the misunderstanding that can occur as a result. Write a paper in which you briefly summarize Kleege’s narrative and offer your interpretation of her message: According to Kleege, how do labels and perceptions influence identity–how we see ourselves and how others see us? Analyze Kleege’s rhetorical situation to demonstrate your understanding of how these factors affect what she says and how she says it. Then respond to two of her ideas with your own ideas and experiences: What ideas can you relate to? What ideas challenge your beliefs or previous understanding?
Length and Format: Minimum 1000 words using academic format and MLA Style for document design and in-text documentation. A work cited page is not required for this paper.
