How To Develop A Good Introduction For A Text Response Essay

What is a text response essay? Through your school years, you have surely encountered such tasks more than once, speaking out your mind on “On Mice and Men”, “Little Women” or else. Such a paper is your personal opinion on the things that you have read and your personal reaction to them. Sometimes, students feel that writing such a paper is a big problem and a big responsibility, because such a task forces them to give the text a meaning that is, probably, different from the general critical opinion regarding the book. However, if you have such an assignment, you should not worry much. As a rule, your opinion, even if it’s different from the majority, is valuable, and you should do your best to represent it correctly.

• Before you start writing the text response essay, you need to make sure that you have read the text attentively, to the end, and without haste. It’s very important whether you like or dislike the text, whether you agree or disagree with it author, whether you have remembered something from your personal experience that is similar to the events described, and whether or not you have learned some lesson from the text.
• If you need to write a text response paper on a text that you have read a long time ago, take your time and look through the text again, taking notes. The longer you sit thinking over the details of the text and the emotions it causes in you, the less time you will spend later, writing.
• Think over the way you are going to interpret your thoughts and feelings about the text and the angle you choose to describe them. You should not be afraid to show negative feelings that you have from the text (if you have some), like “Though I found “Lord of the Flies” disgusting at times, I admit that the problem of cohabitation in a small community that fights for survival is still acute…”, or so.
• Work out a clear thesis statement that will play a big role in the introduction. The intro is very important because it’s the part that makes readers keep on reading the text of your project. Compose the intro, mentioning the name of the author and the title of the text you are analyzing. Include a short description of the text and its main idea. End the intro with your thesis statement.