The Response Essay or Critique

Thesis

This type of essay is also known as a critique. A response essay is an essay that tells how you feel about a work. It could be a work of art or writing. This does not mean whether you like it or don't, but what you think about it critically. This means you should be examining specific technical details. Your thesis is whether or not the creator does a good job of using his/her technical skills to provoke a response in the audience. A thesis might also be a suggestion of a meaning of the work and whether or not the creater has achieved this purpose.

Body

The body of the response essay is a careful working through of the work in question, examining all relevant aspects of it. Usually there is too much to work with so you need to focus your work on a limited number of points.

Some of the ways you read through a work of literature include

• identify literary devices such as simile, metaphor, image, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoiea and others and show how they help to convey the overall meaning of the work.

• find themes which are addressed in various parts of the work and show how they contribute to the overall meaning.

• find the roots of words such as the Greek or Latin roots or archaic usage and show how the writer has used these deeper meanings to add layers of complexity to his work.

• relate aspects of the work to the author's own life or experience.

Conclusion

All you have to do is state that the bulk of your evidence supports your thesis. If there are any major arguments against your thesis, you can take one more shot at them.

What is the marker looking for?

A new analysis of an old work might be a good start. Find subtle points which support your argument which you haven't seen presented in other essays. A creative thesis is a good start, but beware of trying to make a work of art say something which the author couldn't have possibly intended. (There's a whole bunch of critical theory around this, but unless you are working on a graduate level essay, just stick to things relevant to the author.)