Problem: As you journey through the Ritzer text, you will be given weekly questions to answer. The questions are designed to elicit individual, that is, your personal responses to what you have read and internalized from the reading. You are also encouraged to add whatever thoughts you have on the chapter you have just read. This is a journal after all!
Your objective is not to memorize the details in these readings. Rather you should focus on the main point (the theory), the examples, the issues, and the assumptions that they suggest. Most of all, and more so as the course goes on, use the reading to stimulate your own ideas, theories, and examples of social change and compare them with those of the author.
As with the discussion boards, your responses to the questions should be in paragraph form and include "I" statements. The more you show me, your instructor, that you see Ritzer's principles of McDonaldization around you and in your own life, the better your score will be. Remember, both the journals and discussion boards are worth more than other assignments.