8/14/2019 Standards-Based Literary Response
1/2
Heick Standards-based Reading Response Guide: Responding to
Fiction and Non-Fiction Texts
(ALL) 1. Title, Author(s), published in (if part of a larger
work):
(ALL) 2.Self-selected materials: Why did you decide to read this
material? (___ paragraphs)
(ALL)3.Author Purpose: What seemed to be the Authors Purpose in
creating this text? What were theyhoping this text would
accomplish? Why do you think so? (___ paragraphs)
(ALL) 4. Theme(s): What is the authors overall message to their
audience? Is there a sentence you can choose
from the text that captures that? What supporting details allow
you to make this inference? (___ paragraphs)
(ALL) 5. Author Position: As a result of this reading, what can
you infer is the authors position on any relevant
theme or issue? This will often be a social issue. (___
paragraphs)
(ALL) 6. Audience: Does there seem to be a specific audience the
author is trying to reach? Why do you think
so? If not, what makes you think there is not a specific
audience? (___ paragraphs)
(ALL)7.Tone: What is the overall tone of the work? How do the
language, content, imagery, and allusions
combine to give the reading a feel, or tone? What details help
you to understand this? What can you infer aboutthe authors
position on important themes or issues because of that tone? (___
paragraphs)
(ALL)8.Point(s) of View, Bias: What point of view was the book
written from? How does the way the story is
told? Is the author biased in any way? Does the author seem to
be aware of this bias? (___ paragraphs)
(ALL)9.Structure/Text Features: What structural elements did you
notice in the book? How was it organized?
How did these elements impact your understanding of the content?
Were there any text features that were super
helpfulor just plain annoying? What other way could they have
done it that wouldve made it better in your
eyes? (___ paragraphs)
(ALL) 10. Author Style: What elements of the authors writing
style did you notice? How do these elements
impact your understanding or enjoyment of the text?
(ALL) 11. Credibility Does the author have credibility to write
about this subject or topic? Why?
(ALL)12.Mood: What is the general mood of the text? What details
makes you think so?
(FICTION) 13. Plot: List the 6 - 8 events most crucial events,
either numbered by order of importance, or
chronologically on a plot line.
(FICTION)14.Characters, Text Connections: Full name of all
important characters, with one line
characterizing description of each, and labeling as a
major/minor, flat/round, and static/dynamic character. Could
you see yourself in this character at all, in any major or minor
way? How did this affect your reading?
(___ paragraphs)
(FICTION)15.Character Motivation, Text Connections: What was the
protagonist motivated most by? How
did this affect their experience in the story? Was their source
of motivation something that you could relate to?
(___ paragraphs)
(FICTION)16.Evaluation/Revision: Choose one important part of
this reading that the author couldve made a
different choicethe structure, the characterization, the pacing,
the information included, the mood, etc.and
then explain how they couldve done it differently, and what
effect it wouldve had on the reading.
(___ paragraphs)
