Why I said what I said to Stephanie

The reason I asked Stephanie to give a personal reaction to the tone of the poem she had read is that since tone has to deal with how the writing affects the reader, I felt it need to have Stephanie's own reaction to the piece and not just an objective view of the author's use of tone. I saw this as a higher order concern because from reading the whole piece over twice, I felt it was a bit dry and academic. It lacked a personal element that defined Stephanie's point of view. I felt she had a good command of the language and the format, so I tried to find a place where I could have her develop her own ideas further and probed her with questions in an effort to get her to reexamine her work.