Unit 1
Expository Writing
Responding to
a Short Story
Responding to a Short Story
What is a literary response?
• In a literary response, a writer
—tells how he or she reacted to a literary selection
—explains his or her reaction using specific details and
examples from the text
• In this workshop, you will learn how to
write a response to a short story
that you have read.
Assignment: Use my critical
thinking skills to write a response to a
short story I have read.
Goal: Clearly present an engaging
response to a story or an aspect of a
short story.
Strategy: Organize my main points
and support them with evidence from
the story.
Writing Rubric: My response to
literature should include the following:
• an introduction that grabs the reader’s
attention and sets up my thesis statement
• a clear organizational pattern
• textual evidence (paraphrased and quoted)
that supports my main ideas
• an awareness of my audience and an
appropriate tone
• a conclusion that restates my thesis in a new
way
Chaim Potok was a novelist, essayist, and
poet. In this interview excerpt, Potok
discusses how reading influenced his
writing. Consider how your own reading
experiences inspire you.
I think it was...the realization that you could really create
the world out of language...I figured if these writers could
get me to be interested in two different...worlds that there
was something about this form of communication that I
wanted to be part of. That it captivated me the way it did,
that it worked its magic on me, made me realize how
powerful this medium is. And I wanted to become part of it.
➊ PREWRITE
Narrowing Your Topic
• First, decide on a story to write about.
—Which stories do you feel most strongly about?
—Which stories changed your understanding of
something or made you question what you thought you
knew?
—Which stories did you find especially enjoyable,
surprising, or strange?
• Whichever story you choose, be sure that it is one
that inspired a strong reaction and one that will
give you enough to discuss in your response.
➊ PREWRITE
Gathering Details
• Once you have chosen a story to write about,
freewrite to gather ideas.
—When you freewrite, you write without pausing,
reflecting, correcting mistakes, or changing ideas.
—In freewriting, you simply write.
Begin by setting in front of you a
pen and a clean sheet of paper.
➊ PREWRITE
Gathering Details
• Think about your favorite story so far. Before
touching pen to paper, consider:
—Why is this your favorite?
—What is the best thing about it?
—Who are the most important characters?
—What deeper meaning might the story have?
—How does the story affect you?
• Next, begin writing. Continue for five straight
minutes.
➊ PREWRITE
Gathering Details
• Read over what you’ve just written to gain some
insight into what you can focus on.
• Circle each thing that seems like an important
detail from the story.
• Underline anything that might be a good idea to
expand.
➊ PREWRITE
Deciding on Your Thesis
• Make a list of what you have circled and
underlined.
—These ideas should become part of your thesis or
evidence to support the thesis.
• Skim the story to help you remember the themes
of the story, recall details, and answer any
questions you have.
• Reread any parts of the story that are
unclear and ask a classmate or teacher
if you have additional questions.
➋ DRAFT
Organizing Ideas
• Choose an organizational pattern that will help you
explain your ideas clearly and effectively.
• To emphasize your strongest points, organize them
by order of importance.
—Least important to most important
—Most important to least important
Least Important Point
Most Important Point
More Important Point
Less Important Point
Most Important Point
Least Important Point
➋ DRAFT
Organizing Ideas
• Or, you may prefer to use chronological order, in
which you discuss details in the order they appear
in the story.
Details from Beginning
Details from Middle
Details from End
• Whatever you decide, the order of paragraphs
should be clear and logical to the reader.
➋ DRAFT
Write your response by following this threepart framework:
Introduction
Body
Conclusion
➋ DRAFT
Introduction
• Summarize the basic plot of the story.
• Include your thesis.
Body
• Include a topic sentence for each paragraph that
expresses the main idea of that paragraph.
• Give supporting evidence in each paragraph to
support your main idea and your thesis.
Conclusion
• Sum up your main points.
• Restate your thesis.
➋ DRAFT
Before drafting, create a plan for your response.
Example
Tone and Audience
As you write, keep in mind who will read your
response. This is your audience.
• Make sure you give your audience enough
background information.
• If your audience has also read the
story, only summarize the main parts.
• Use your introduction to
“hook,” or engage, your
audience.
Tone and Audience
Your tone is your attitude toward the subject
you are writing about.
• Your tone tells the reader how you feel about the
subjects you discuss.
• The tone you take can be formal or informal, and it
can show a variety of different attitudes.
• The tone of your response should be natural, but
not too casual.
➌ REVISE
Evaluating Your Draft
• When your draft is complete, look over your paper
to identify its strengths and weaknesses.
• To get the best evaluation of your writing, conduct
a peer review.
—Exchange papers with a
classmate.
—Discuss ways you can improve
your work.
➌ REVISE
Delivering a Peer Review
• Be focused.
—Concentrate on content, organization, and style.
—Leave spelling and punctuation for the proofreading
stage.
• Be positive.
—Respect the writer’s feelings and genuine writing
efforts.
• Be specific.
—Give the writer concrete ideas on improving his or her
work.
➌ REVISE
Receiving a Peer Review
• Be specific.
—Tell the reviewer your concerns about the paper.
• Ask questions.
—Make sure you understand the reviewer’s comments.
• Be selective.
—Accept suggestions graciously, but don’t feel you have
to use all—or any—of them.
• Use the Revising Checklist on the next slide to
help guide you through your review.
Revising Checklist
 Does the introduction grab the reader’s
attention and set up the thesis statement?
 Is the organizational pattern clear?
 Are the main ideas supported with
specific details and examples?
 Are the sentences varied and engaging?
➌ REVISE
Below is part of a draft of a literary response.
• The notes to the right indicate the reasons for the
changes in the draft.
• See the complete draft on page 133 of your
textbook.
EDIT AND PROOFREAD
Focus: Sentence Variety
• Including a variety of sentences in your response
will make your writing more interesting.
• As you revise your draft
—Check to make sure the length and type of your
sentences vary.
—Add introductory phrases or change the order of the
clauses in complex sentences.
—If you have several short, choppy sentences in a row,
combine some of them with conjunctions.
—Use transitions to connect ideas.
 EDIT AND PROOFREAD
Focus: Sentence Variety
• An effective way to add variety is to use questions
to grab your reader’s attention.
Children find themselves in some unusual
situations. Can you think of some unusual
situations you found yourself in as a child?
Children will do very strange things to avoid
getting in trouble.
EDIT AND PROOFREAD
Focus: Commonly Confused Words
• Some words can be confusing when you are
writing.
—Review words such as whose and who’s carefully as
you are revising your draft.
—If you are not sure which word to use, check a
dictionary.
• Test yourself using the example
on the next slide.
EDIT AND PROOFREAD
Which is correct?
1
The story makes you wonder about whose who, and
if there are any other Charles-es out there.
2
The story makes you wonder about who’s who, and
if there are any other Charles-es out there.
EDIT AND PROOFREAD
Correct answer:
2
The story makes you wonder about who’s who, and
if there are any other Charles-es out there.
If you substitute the words who is for the contraction
who’s you will see that the second example makes
sense. The word whose is the possessive form of the
word who, as in, “Whose umbrella is this in my
backpack?”
 EDIT AND PROOFREAD
Proofreading
• The next-to-last step in the writing process is to
correct mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization.
• Look for any misused words or errors in grammar
too.
• Use proofreader’s marks to show your corrections.
Student Model
Review the final draft of the Student Model on
page 135 of your textbook.
• Pay attention to the notes that identify the different
parts of the paper.
PUBLISH AND PRESENT
Final Draft
• Make a clean copy of your paper for presentation.
• Handwritten papers should be neat and legible.
• If you are working with a word processing
program
—double-space the lines of text
—use a readable typeface
• Follow your teacher’s presentation
guidelines before submitting your
work.