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Week 14
Comments due at 5pm on Friday, May 6th at 5pm by email

This week your writing assignment is to prepare reader’s comments for the other students in your small group. For each paper you read, please answer the following questions. I imagine that your answers will amount to about a page of text, but feel free to write more than this.

1) What do you understand to be the main point of this paper? How would you rephrase this point in your own words?

2) What assumptions is the author trying to challenge? Do you get a clear sense of a stasis that s/he is writing against? If so, do you find the thesis compelling? Did you agree with the stated stasis before you read this paper? Is the stasis a straw man?

3) What evidence or examples does the author use to support his or her claims? Does this evidence make sense to you? Did it make you think of anything else the author doesn’t mention?

4) What kind of authorial tone does the paper have? Does the tone fit the style of argumentation? Would a different tone make more sense?

5) Do you have a clear sense of the stakes of this thesis or argument? Why does the author think this is an important question to ask? Do you agree? Is this an important question to ask?

6) What surprised you about this paper?

7) What most impressed you about this paper?