Module 4: Reading Response
In addition to completing a collaborative annotation, each student will complete an individual reading response. This response is intended to be “semi-formal” in nature. On one hand, it should be polished, clearly written, and should include in-text citations that demonstrate you have carefully read the assigned reading. On the other hand, the reading response is not intended for you to provide me with a summary of the assigned reading.
The purpose of the reading response is to allow you to wrestle with the course material and ask questions about your understanding, your interpretation, and your disagreements with it. I also want the reflections to be a useful tool you can refer to in constructing your final paper, so each response will ask you to think about the key ideas from the assigned reading that you might later use in your final paper.
I want to be clear that this assignment is not my way of testing whether you walked away with the “correct” understanding of a reading, but it is instead a way of me gauging your process of understanding.
Reading responses are therefore graded for completion, but not for “accuracy” though I will provide feedback as part of our ongoing dialogue.
Your response should be no fewer than 600 words (but can be longer), distributed in the following three sections.
Please make sure to include the following subheadings that clearly define each of the parts of your reflection, so I know which part is which.
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Summary (200+ words). First, summarize the main themes of the readings. I am not asking you here to spend time reproducing each article individually, but to give an integrated summary of the main ideas. So, for example, if we are engaging different authors’ perspectives on the process of eminent critique you would focus on providing an overall vision of eminent critique informed by everyone we read, rather than arranging your summary by author.
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Critical analysis (200+ words). Second, I want to you provide a critical analysis of the readings. This is where you are going to carefully consider what was beneficial, useful, and helpful in the readings, and what concerns or differences of opinion you might have. Please do NOT speak in vague terms but stay very close to the text. This means, for example, you should provide quotes or paraphrase authors with citations that show you understood what they said. Two things to remember: authors are neither all good nor all bad. A careful reader will find some value and some problems in just about everyone. Second, you don’t have to respond to everything in the text. Just select aspects of the reading that stood out to you.
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Reflection (200+ words). In this final section I want to you to think about how what you read might be useful for your final paper. Remember that the final paper for the class will ask you to select a “problem of practice” (something from your personal leadership context), to provide a critical analysis of the problem using insights from our readings, and to develop a potential solution to the problem from a critical lens. In this final reflection, you should start to identify how what you learned might be useful for this final paper. This space should be used, in other words, for you to start to reflect on what ideas in our readings might be of value to your final paper and why those things are important.
Required Readings (attached on separate page)
· Wilson, S. (2016).
Thinking differently about leadership: A critical history of leadership studies. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Chapter 7
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Townley, B. (1993). Foucault, power/knowledge, and its relevance for human resource management.
Academy of Management Review, 18, 518-545.
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Ford, J.
(2005). Examining leadership through critical feminist readings.
Journal of Health Organization and Management, 19, 236-251.
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[NOTE: ALL GROUPS (RESPECTIVELY) WILL COLLABORATE TO ANNOTATE THIS READING. BEFORE BEGINNING THIS READING, PLEASE REVIEW THE ASSIGNMENT]
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Ospina, S., & Foldy, E. (2009). A critical review of race and ethnicity in the leadership literature: Surfacing context, power and the collective dimensions of leadership.
The Leadership Quarterly, 20, 876-896.
Recommended Readings
. On the Idea of Emancipation in Management and Organization Studies.
Critical Race Theory.
The Archaeology of Knowledge.
