Your task as a student is to read, respond, and write for yourself. A course in literature is an exploration of possible new ideas and reactions, not a reduction or digest of what already exists. When you read, use your attention, memory, and imagination to initiate your latent responses.
Good papers are interesting, sane, disciplined, informative, and engaged.
The writer's tone of voice springs from pertinent arguments and evidence. If you have learned something in writing the paper, the result will be valuable. Please avoid makework, which produces papers which are boring, patchwork, self-indulgent, wandering, grandiose, fake. In any event, written work should not consist mainly of echoes of the class discussions, editorial notes, or summaries or paraphrases. Please type or print out your papers legibly.