Assignment/Activity Title — Third Columnist Response

Year — Junior

Portfolio Competency — Critical Thinking

Skill(s) — Annotating, Analyzing a Text

In the third columnist response we had to pick another article written by our assigned columnist. After selecting
the article, we read and annotated it for rhetorical devices, identifying the different aspects of SOAPSTone to construct a
mini analysis of the writing. After reflecting on the article we wrote a short paper, analyzing the different techniques that
our columnist employed to successfully identify their audience and purpose. The assignment has three main steps, reading
the article, annotating it, and analyzing it. The goal of the assignment is to improve upon each of the three responses you
write, eventually getting to know your columnist well enough to write a reflection on their writing as a whole with its
successes and failures (the Columnist Profile). I analyzed the columnist Dahleen Glanton from the Chicago Tribune, my
third response being written on her article “If Michael Bloomberg is the Democratic Nominee, African Americans Will
Take One for the Team and Vote for Him”.
In order to complete the response, I needed to be able to identify the different techniques and devices that my
columnist used to communicate her purpose to her audience. Adequate annotation skills were critical to the success of my
response, as they are what majority of my evidence and devices come from. Being able to write down key things and mark
them so they’re available for later use was very important. In addition to annotating, I needed to be able to look at a text
and dive deeper into finding the true meaning behind the chosen words. Noticing and understanding why the author
employs certain techniques is so important to understanding the intentions of the article, without which I would not have
been able to construct my response. While these skills were necessary upon entering the assignment, during the process I
had to develop skills that would allow me to really see what the columnist was trying to do. I had to think critically to
acquire the skills necessary to interpret and understand the author’s words, to hear what she was saying and who she was
saying it to. The third columnist response pushed me to look further into the author’s linguistic choices and decisions,
growing my skills as a reader and furthering my thinking when looking at a text.
After completing the third response, I was able to reflect on the two I had written before, now more able to see the
techniques that my columnist employed. The skills I grew throughout this process in understanding a text will help me
tremendously in future assignments, allowing me to see closer into what a writer is saying and why they are saying it a
certain way. As the response pushed me to interpret writing and language in a new way, I’ll be able to use this skill in the
future to analyze new texts and writers.

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