4.4: Strategies for Responding

Now that you’ve picked out appropriate quotations, and you have opinions about them, you need to learn and apply strategies for responding to the author.

An effective response will:

1. Use a Specific Point from the Author: The point or argument should be somewhat related to the overall main idea or an important supporting detail and it should be quoted directly from the source.
2. Be an Opinion, Not a Fact: Remember, you can’t argue with a fact!
3. Be Well-Supported: Give enough detailed evidence so that the reader fully understands the point you’re making; make connections for your reader.
4. Demonstrate a Variety of Response Types: Variety makes things interesting and spicy. Be spicy.
5. Show Evidence of Critical Thinking: Critical thinking means that you have analyzed and evaluated an article and its argument, and you have connected on a deeper level with the content.

There are three basic response strategies:

While you may agree with much of the author’s argument, disagreeing or

partially disagreeing with specific points the author makes demonstrates

that you’ve critically read the text and have engaged with it at a deeper

level. With this strategy, you may give hypothetical or real examples or

explain further with facts as support.

Personal Experience &

This strategy uses your own experience as support and can be combined

with agreeing or disagreeing in a response paragraph.

Application &

This strategy connects the text to another article, movie, TV show, or news

program outside of the article that you are familiar with. The easiest source

to connect to is another article that you’ve read in class on the same topic.

Again, this strategy can be combined with agreeing or disagreeing.

Below are examples of each response strategy. Different elements of the response are labeled and color coded as follows:

• the name of the author and the article title
• the quote from the article
• the student’s explanation of this quotation
• the student’s opinion
• the evidence the student uses to support his opinion

Agree/Disagree/Both

In " Globalization and Local Culture", the Levin Institute argue that "One of the principal concerns about the new globalization of culture that is supposedly taking places is that it not only leads to homogenization of world culture, but also that it largely represents the ’Americanization’ of world cultures" (179). I disagree with the Levin Institute’s view that globalization makes world culture become more similar to American culture. In my perspective, culture could be affected by other countries’ cultures who may be more powerful than their own, but others’ local cultures cannot eliminate or be similar to those powerful countries. Culture can be changed by people, but it cannot be removed by globalization. For example, local cultures are just like human personalities, and as we know that personalities are what we learn and form from birth. So that local culture is the true self, no matter how good or how badly other countries’ cultures affect, we cannot change what we have. Local culture can absorb advantages from different cultures, but local culture cannot be eliminated by others’ cultures.

Personal Experience

However, I disagree with Dr. Kate Darling’s opinion, who is quoted by the author, that “‘the one thing that does separate robots from other machines is that we tend to treat them like they’re alive.’” Darling means that one way to distinguish robots and other machines is how people treat them; humans treat robots like they are alive compared to other robots. However, this is only partly true. Some people might say this is true because some robots look like dogs, fish, insects, or even humans, and robots perform some specific and hard tasks that usual machines cannot perform. Therefore, it is possible for some people to think of robots as living things. On the other hand, many people treat robots and other machines as just tools or objects that can help humans to live more convenient and efficient lives. For example, when I was young, I had a robot dog called AIBO. I played with this robot a lot, but I knew that this robot had no emotions and was only repeating the same sentences or words that are downloaded in its algorithm. Even when I was young, I knew that it as
just a robot. I did not feed or let AIBO drink water; I just charged this robot and played with it just like playing with a normal toy. Therefore, I cannot understand that people treat robots like living things compared to other machines.

Application

The New York Times Editorial Board says that “[the bonds given as babies] were intended to chip away at the inequalities of wealth, and the resulting inequalities of opportunity, that weigh on developed nations.” The NTY Board means that this government money would help lift up those people who aren’t as wealthy as others, therefore hopefully leveling out equality that would otherwise drag down wealthier nations. I agree because I read about how money given by the government in a different situation is helping those who are less fortunate. In the article “Why Boston is Paying Ex-Gang Members to Go to College” by Andrew Zaleski and CityLab, the authors describe the non-profit organization College Bound Dorchester which gives a stipend to former gang members to go to school, receive an education, and contribute to society. This program is helping to stop gang members from cycling in and out of prison and is opening up doors to them, doors that have been previously closed because of economic factors. Zaleski and CityLab show that giving government
money to people to further their education works, which is why I believe that the NYT board’s solution of baby bonds would also achieve its goal.

PRACTICE 1: Identifying Support Strategies

In the paragraphs below, decide which type of support strategy was used. Remember, multiple strategies could be used in combination. Highlight words/phrases/sentences in the paragraphs that support your decision.

1. Moreover, Esme Nicholson thinks that "It seems that, given half the chance, integration in Germany starts in the schoolyard." Nicholson believes that starting with children, people can slowly break some stereotypes. I agree with that. I think many of the older generation will be biased against certain things or people because of the growing environment. With the development of the times, with the new generation of young people as a bridge, they can eliminate some prejudice of the past. For example, my mother used to have a deep stereotypes against homosexuality. She used to believe that homosexuality was abnormal. I’m still impressed by her disgust when I first asked her what homosexuality was when I was a child. When I grew up, I really learned about homosexual groups through the Internet and some of my classmates. Then I found out how wrong my mother’s attitude towards homosexuality was. Accordingly, I began to try to eliminate her prejudice against homosexuality through online knowledge and some homosexual classmates around me. Even if it was difficult at first, now she can see homosexuality as normal people like us. Just as the white and immigrant groups in the author’s article accepted each other through their children, my mother break stereotypes against homosexual groups through her child. Many elders will have prejudice against some people or things because of their environment, and their children, as people in the new environment, are a good way for them to eliminate prejudice and accept new things. In short, I agree with Nicholson that people can break prejudice through children.

Response strategy

2. According to the article "Break up the Monoculture," Helena Norberg-Hodge explains that "in fact, if efficiency is the yardstick, the goal should be to promote economies that are diversified enough to meet people’s needs within the shortest distance possible, depending on long-distance transport only for goods that cannot be produced." This indicates that when the government or the global corporations make the solutions for the negative effects of monoculture, they have to consider the distance of transportation and products where it was produced. I agree with the author because it is true that through globalization, lots of people have got benefits, but they have to keep in mind the localization. Also, if people use local products instead of imported products to less distance and money and develop the local economy at the time. For example, buying tangerine from a neighbor’s farm is better than buying imported from South-East Asia because the distance is noticeably short which is much more efficient, besides, it would contribute to the local economy. Therefore, the government and the global corporations must consider not only efficiency but also local economies not to be destroyed and it is beneficial eventually.