reading response assignment

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How to Write a Reader Response

Last Updated: March 19, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Diane Stubbs . Diane Stubbs is a Secondary English Teacher with over 22 years of experience teaching all high school grade levels and AP courses. She specializes in secondary education, classroom management, and educational technology. Diane earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware and a Master of Education from Wesley College. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 443,481 times.

A reader response assignment asks you to explain and defend your personal reaction to an assigned text. Reader response papers can be difficult because they force you, the reader, to take responsibility for giving meaning to the text. Often these assignments feel open-ended and vague, but don't worry, a good reader response paper will follow a standard essay format that you can easily master. This guide will walk you through the creation of a well-crafted reader response paper that's sure to wow your instructor and earn you an awesome grade.

Writing the Reader Response

• It is often helpful to use the first body paragraph to include more information about the text, the plotline, major themes, etc., and then use the rest of the paragraphs to provide an analysis of how you felt about the text.

• Remember that a reader response is meant to be personal, so it's OK to incorporate personal anecdotes and opinions into your analysis.
• Example: "Forcing Hester Prynne to wear the scarlet "A" reminded me of a time when I was cyber-bullied in eighth grade, and my "friends" spread rumors about me online where the whole school could see."

• Example: "At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, Manolin promises to once again fish with Santiago, so the old man no longer has to be alone. This was Santiago's greatest wish, but it was a different kind of success than he initially set out to achieve."

• Example: "'My big fish must be somewhere,' said Santiago. This is exactly how I felt after I received my third rejection letter, but like Santiago, I kept trying, and eventually I was accepted."
• Make sure and cite your examples per class directions. You will usually be required to note the page numbers of any quotations or specific examples in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

• A great way to think of your conclusion is that it's one last chance to explain to your reader how you see all of your points fitting together.

• Sometimes it's hard to see our own mistakes, so it can really help to exchange papers with a friend, and proofread each other's work.

Drafting the Reader Response

• "Even though I found The Scarlett Letter hard to follow at times, Hester Prynne's story is still relatable, and made me think a lot about the effects of publicly shaming people online."
• "Some people believe the Old Man and the Sea is a book about failure, but it is really a story of perseverance that teaches us that success may not always come in the form we expect, and even disasters can lead to positive outcomes."

• Introduction: 1 paragraph.
• Analysis/Body Paragraphs: 3-4 paragraphs. How you organize these paragraphs will depend on the parameters of the assignment.
• Conclusion: 1 paragraph.

Reading the Text

• Do you like or dislike the text?
• Can you identify the author's purpose?
• Do you agree or disagree with the author?
• Does the text relate to you and your life? If so, how? If not, why not?
• Does the text agree with, or go against your personal world view?
• What, if anything, did you learn from the text?

• Taking a bit of extra time during this phase will save you a lot of time in the writing process. [9] X Research source

• I think that...
• I feel that...
• I see that...
• I have learned that...

Sample Reader Response

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://penandthepad.com/rules-writing-reading-response-essay-3968.html
• ↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-jefferson-english102/chapter/reader-response-criticism-american-literature-i/
• ↑ https://writingstudio.gsu.edu/files/2021/02/Reading-Response.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/proofreading/steps_for_revising.html
• ↑ https://faculty.washington.edu/momara/Reader%20Response.pdf
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/essay-outline/
• ↑ http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper
• ↑ http://education-portal.com/articles/Step-by-Step_Guide_to_Writing_a_Great_Reading_Response_Paper.html
• ↑ https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper

About This Article

To write a reader response, develop a clear thesis statement and choose example passages from the text that support your thesis. Next, write an introduction paragraph that specifies the name of the text, the author, the subject matter, and your thesis. Then, include 3-4 paragraphs that discuss and analyze the text. Finish up with a conclusion paragraph that summarizes your arguments and brings the reader back to your thesis or main point! For tips on analyzing the text before writing your assignment, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Home » Education » How to Write a Reading Response

How to Write a Reading Response

What is a reading response.

A reading response is a task that asks you to examine, explain, and defend your personal response to a given work of literature. Many students find writing reading responses difficult because the responsibility of assigning meaning to a text lies with the writer of the response. Although reading response tasks may feel a bit vague or open ended, you can write a successful response by following a standard essay format. Here are some tips to write a reading response, a good reading response.

Read the Text Carefully

It is important to read the text fully and carefully before start to write a reading response. Take time to think what the text makes you feel; make notes so that you won’t forget this response later. Highlight or bookmark important parts of the text or write down their page numbers.

Think Carefully

Don’t start to write a reading response just after you’ve finished reading. Take the time to think carefully about the whole text and what it made you feel. Take down notes.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you like or dislike the text?
• Do you agree or disagree with the writer?
• Does the text clash with your personal views?
• How does the text relate to you personally?
• To what extent did the text challenge or change your opinions or beliefs?
• Did you learn anything from the text? If so, what did you learn?

Make a Draft

Decide your stance.

A good essay always has a clear main argument or a thesis statement. If your teacher has given a specific central question, the thesis statement may be related to this question; if not, your main argument should be on the overall impression of the text.

Make an Outline

If you have been given a word limit or a page count, you may have to be especially careful about the structure of your essay. The reader response generally takes the format of an essay,

Format / Structure of Reader Response

Introduction.

Start your introduction with the name of the author and the full title of the work. Give a brief description of the text and explain what it is about. But, don’t try to summarise the story. Then, explain your main argument.

Divide your content into different points and address each point in different paragraphs. The number of body paragraphs in the essay can actually depend on the content of your reader response. You can use the questions you explored earlier to separate these paragraphs.

When you are writing about your reading, don’t just explain how you felt about the text – analyse why you felt it. Give examples from the text and from your real life. You can also use quotes from the text to make your answers more relevant.

 In this section, summarise the argument you have made so far, and connect it to your thesis statement or main argument. The conclusion can be just one short paragraph.

Read your answer several times and make sure that there are no spelling or grammar errors.

About the Author: Hasa

Hasanthi is a seasoned content writer and editor with over 8 years of experience. Armed with a BA degree in English and a knack for digital marketing, she explores her passions for literature, history, culture, and food through her engaging and informative writing.

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• Articles / Reading / Reading Responses

5 Reader Activities That Invite Higher Thinking

by MiddleWeb · Published 07/12/2015 · Updated 05/30/2023

You’ve taught students to read closely, to annotate, to discuss—now what? How can we get kids to interact with texts in creative ways that require an even higher level of understanding? Here, I’ll share five of my favorite post-reading reader-response activities.

1. Written Reading Responses (RRs)

Doing Reading Responses (RRs) is one of the most effective techniques I know to get kids to formulate new ideas about a fiction or non-fiction text while referring to the text as they do so. It is a logical next step to annotating. This technique can be adapted for middle or high school students.

In the beginning of the year, I give students a list of 10-15 RR “types” with descriptions for each. Some of the types include Give an Opinion, Ask a Question, Prove a Character Trait, Dissect a Significant Passage, Make a Connection, Spot the Setting, Find the Figurative Language, Evaluate the Intro, and Mark the Motivation. The rules for writing an RR are as follows:

How To Write an RR

• Label the type of RR you are writing.
• Write at least four sentences.
• Have an original idea; don’t just summarize.
• Quote and cite something in the text to support your idea.

These rules force students to think of an original idea about the text or to elaborate on something they may have briefly annotated. My handout gives them ideas about how to do this. [Editor’s note: Marilyn’s handout is reproduced in her Scholastic book 50 Common Core Reading Response Activities . Used with permission.]

For example, for the Spot the Setting RR, students shouldn’t merely give details about the setting; they should speculate about why the author chose that particular setting, and how it contributes to plot or mood.

The four-sentence rule is required even for questions: I tell students to write a question and then three sentences about what they understand about the question so far. The labeling makes students deliberately acknowledge how they are framing their thoughts about the text.

I usually have students do RRs for homework, and then use their RRs as a springboard and compass for discussion. I often begin class by asking students to share their RRs. As individual students speak up, the rest of us jump to their cited text and follow along. I merely facilitate the conversation, highlighting important points and asking deeper questions when needed. The students themselves will eventually hit upon all the important points of the text; often they will make observations or ask questions I had not thought of myself.

I rarely collect RRs. Instead, after our discussions, I give students another activity to work on, and I circulate to check that the RRs have been done. On days when we haven’t had a whole-group discussion, I might ask each student to summarize his or her RR for me as I walk around. I love this method because it enables me to have a 60-second reading conference with each of them.

Occasionally, though, I will have students complete a “Polished RR,” for which they must choose one of their particularly insightful or interesting RRs, type it up, expand upon it if necessary, and hand it in for a larger grade.

At the end of the first semester, I have students write an RR Analysis Paper in which they examine their reading response habits: Do they always gravitate to one type of RR? Do they have to fight the urge to only summarize? Is there an RR that they have deliberately avoided? What does this say about them as readers and thinkers? This metacognitive exercise helps students see themselves as active participants in their own learning. It also helps refocus and challenge them for the next semester.

2. Concrete Found Poems

I’m combining two poetic forms here: the “concrete” or shaped poem that middle school students are probably very familiar with, and the “found” poem, which they may not know. Each is a legitimate form in its own right; each can be done with sophistication and deeper meaning. Combining them can push students’ thinking and analysis to a higher level.

To create a concrete found poem, students must only use words, phrases or even whole sentences “found” in their text. Then, they must shape these words into a visual representation on paper. They are not drawing; they must arrange the words, phrases, or sentences into an image on the page.

Students can create concrete found poems about a character, setting, or theme (using a symbol for the concrete structure). They should turn in not only the finished image but also a sheet with the cited words, phrases, or sentences they used to create the image. I require a minimum of ten of these. Below are some examples using the stories of Prometheus and King Arthur:

3. Postcard Home

Most main characters embark on a journey of some kind; this archetypal plot pattern lends itself to a postcard home activity. Have students write in the voice of a journeying character. You could designate a specific recipient or have students choose their own. Here are some questions to get students thinking:

            Postcard Brainstorming Questions

            Where are you?             Do you like it? Why or why not?             What has happened to you so far? (one or two sentences)             What are you struggling with?             What have you learned so far, about yourself or others?             What will you do?             How do you feel about the recipient?

4. Character To-Do List

We all have many things we want to accomplish in the near and far future, and characters are no different! Tell students to choose a character from the text—or you can assign characters so all the characters are represented. Challenge them to get inside that character’s head to create a to-do list. They can think about the following questions:

            Character To-Do List Brainstorming Questions

            What does he or she have to do on a daily basis?             What does the character want to do or achieve?             What are the character’s responsibilities?             What are the character’s goals?             Where does the character have to go?             Whom does the character need to speak to?

Students should use actual information from the text, of course, but urge them to also infer information and supply text evidence to support their inferences. It helps to set a minimum number of tasks, such as ten. You can suggest that if a character has a large goal on the list, that goal can be broken down into smaller tasks. For example, if a character’s goal is to “win karate tournament,” smaller steps might include, “Practice 2 hours a day” and “Watch opponents compete.” This activity will measure students’ comprehension, their understanding of a character’s underlying motives, their ability to draw inferences from existing information, and their ability to predict a character’s future actions.

For an extra challenge, have students cite the pages containing information from which they drew inferences. Below is an example using Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian .

5. Write a Twitter Conversation

Students love this! Have them work with partners to rewrite part of the text as a Twitter conversation among the characters. They do not have to actually use Twitter; they can just write out the conversation on paper, perhaps using Twitter’s 140-character maximum length. This is not merely a summarizing activity—deeper understandings can surface with this exercise.

For example, students’ choices of Twitter handles for each character may reveal character traits; their use of hashtags could express inferences about personalities and themes. I am always amazed at the humor and wit of the students when we do this activity, and the students themselves are often gasping with laughter by the end of it.

Below is a Twitter conversation between Daedalus, Icarus, and the shepherd that saw them flying.

Keeping It Real

Applying real-word literacy practices, like Twitter chats and To-Do Lists, to in-class texts engages students and deepens understanding. For more ideas, or to view full assignment sheets and rubric possibilities for the assignments suggested here, please see my book, 50 Common Core Reading Response Activities (Scholastic, 2014). [ Read MiddleWeb’s review. ]

If you’d like to explore the topic of this post in more depth, Marilyn’s most recent book is Reading with Presence: Crafting Meaningful, Evidenced-Based Reading Responses (Heinemann, 2018). She can be reached at http://marilynpryle.com/ .

Share this:

Tags: character diary Common Core concrete found poem marilyn pryle postcard home Reading Response activities reading responses to-do list Twitter conversation

MiddleWeb is all about the middle grades, with great 4-8 resources, book reviews, and guest posts by educators who support the success of young adolescents. And be sure to subscribe to MiddleWeb SmartBrief for the latest middle grades news & commentary from around the USA.

3 Responses

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Great list, thanks for sharing!

Can’t wait to try the concrete found poems for reading science texts. A great way for students to build conceptual ideas about what they are learning. Thanks!

Very good content, we will do this on our own blog site. Many thanks for sharing.

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1.4: Reading Response Assignment

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• Page ID 89761

• Anna Carroll and Eleanor Wakefield
• University of Oregon via OpenOregon

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Reading Response Assignment INSTRUCTIONS

During the course, you will be responsible for writing four reading responses. Three of these should be for texts we read together. The fourth should be an article you find on your own that addresses your chosen research question.

Approached with curiosity and seriousness, these reading responses will be helpful to both you and me—they’ll give you a lot of prewriting ideas for your papers, and they’ll give me more ideas about how to use these readings in our class and in other classes in the future. I’ll also get an earlier look at how you’re responding to the unit themes and turning them into potential essay topics, so I’ll be able to follow your progress more closely.

• Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains.
• Course vocabulary, both about sports and about critical reading and writing.
• Engagement with the text’s topic and knowledge ( understanding ); contextualization of the topic and awareness of related issues ( application and sy nthesis ).
• Writing skills: organization, supporting claims, editing.
• Demonstration of writing skills (see above).
• Engagement with a text at five levels of depth.
• Summary, description ( understanding ).
• Supporting an analytical claim ( analysis ).
• Supporting a claim about applicability or synthesis.
• Developing an evaluation based on critical reading, supporting that evaluation.

Your reading response will be about two double-spaced pages made up of five paragraphs, one of which demonstrates each of the following:

• Understanding of the reading. Summarize and describe the text. What is it about, in general? Where did it appear? When was it written? What is its genre? What else is part of it (pictures, videos, sub-sections, etc.)?
• It is important that your analysis paragraph have a topic sentence that makes a claim (“This reading is primarily aimed at women, which is clear because of …”), and the body of the paragraph provide textual evidence supporting that claim.
• You must address the following at the end of the paragraph: How does your experience help you to understand the reading differently, or how does the reading help you to think about your experience (or news event, etc.) differently?
• It is important that you name another essay you have read and make a specific connection here. You must then explore how that connection makes you re-think, re-consider, or re-understand something from one or both readings.
• Evaluation of the reading. Did you like it? Is it useful? What would you do differently? Who might like it? To whom would you recommend it? Choose one specific way to evaluate (from the examples here or otherwise) and support your evaluation briefly.

You do not need to answer each of the questions listed, but you must cover each of those five categories in a way comparable to the suggestions I’ve provided.

Criteria for Success

I will grade your reading responses out of 10 points based on your completeness and thoughtfulness.

A 10 point reading response

…thoroughly engages with each of the five categories, especially taking care to address the sub-points in analysis , application , and synthesis .

A 7-9 point reading response

…contains all five categories but may lack some depth or miss the sub-point questions; may not summarize the text quite correctly or quite thoroughly enough. Alternatively, it may have four excellent paragraphs and lack one required category entirely.

A 6-point or lower reading response

…will lack an entire paragraph or more, and/or will not demonstrate that the writer understands the categories and/or the reading. May lack organization. In some cases a low-scoring reading response may have five paragraphs, but some do not do the correct work of engaging with the text in the way assigned—it may have two paragraphs of application and none of synthesis, for instance.

Each one is worth 2.5% of your total grade, for a total of 10% of your grade in this course. This is a formal, academic writing assignment.

Format and Submission

This is a formal writing assignment. It will be formatted as all formal work is in our course, with a heading, headers on subsequent pages, 1” margins on all sides, evidence of thorough editing, and so on. You will submit the assignment by the deadline on Canvas as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.

Introduction

CDHE Nomination

AUCC Requirements

Course Description

Sample Policy Statements

Syllabus Sequencing Strategies

Sample Daily Syllabi

Lesson Plans

Reading Selection Recommendations

Assignments

Response Papers and Discussion Forums

Presentations

Discusssion, Group, WTL Questions

Variations, Misc.

Curbing Plagiarism

Additional Teaching & Course Design Resources

Guide Contributors

Response Paper Assignment Example

This example of a weekly response assignment asks for students to submit a one page paper every Friday. The instructor posts specific questions each week during the first few weeks to give the students an indication of what they might pay attention to while reading. After the first few weeks, the instructor encourages the students to come up with their own topics for the responses. Included below is a list of general questions for those students who lack a specific topic for the week. The majority of the questions focus on formalist or traditional literary devices while the last question opens up the possibility of the responses by inviting students to comment on other critical approaches (i.e. feminism, reader response, etc.). One interesting twist for this assignment is the coin flip to decide whether the instructor will collect the response or not. This strategy allows students the possibility of missing a response paper without consequences to their grades and lessens the grading burden for the instructor.

Weekly Response Papers:

For every assigned reading, you should annotate the text. These annotations will help you complete the response paper that you are expected to write every week (once a week). The first few weeks of the semester, you should check the course calendar on Wednesday (from the ‘Calendar’ in our class Writing Studio program) to find questions that you may use to guide your short responses to the fiction we read. After the first few weeks of the semester, you are required to come up with your own writing topics.  On weeks when we read two or more fictional pieces, you should choose one of the selections to respond to in writing. These short responses ( double-spaced and 1 page in length ) must be typed and brought to class every Friday (unless otherwise stated).  At the beginning of class on Friday, I will flip a coin: heads means the responses must be submitted for a grade; tails means I will not collect them. These response papers, while informal pieces of writing, should still be grammatically and syntactically correct; I expect you to use language precisely, to support your response with specifics from the fiction using cited quotations, to write with style, focus, and, yes, correct spelling. Be sure to specify which selection you are responding to in the title or heading. No late responses will be accepted for any reason (you may submit them early if you anticipate an absence), but I will drop the lowest response paper before averaging the others to figure the 30% of the final course grade .  I reserve the right to issue a pop-quiz or an alternative assignment in place of the week’s response paper. No email submissions are accepted .

Response Papers Dos and Don’ts:

A response paper should be fairly formal and should genuinely attempt to shed light on one or more aspects of the work. You may discuss the significance of character, plot, setting, symbol…whatever catches your fancy. Overall, I am looking for interesting and original insights concerning the reading assignment.

An ideal response will be about 1 page in length and typed. Your paper will explore a problem or point of interest created by a work of literature (this includes, but is not limited to, character motivation, thematic elements, symbol, irony, poetry conventions, etc.). Your ideas and insights will be based on information from the pages in the text we have read so far, calling upon specific examples to illustrate the idea or issue you are exploring. Your grade will be based on the quality and depth of your insights, and on the use of specific textual evidence as support. (Avoid the obvious! Take risks! Make it interesting!)

Possible starting places for your response include an author's life, politics, the social context of the work, philosophical musings, how and why the work evokes a particular feeling in you, cultural relevance, or the components of the text such as the significance of form, setting, narrative voice, imagery, or symbolism. Or, perhaps you will apply a critical approach to the text. Or, you may wish to explore the relationship between elements of the text (How does setting influence character?). As we move on into the later weeks of the course, you may even wish to direct your responses toward identifying patterns between texts, and asking what the significance of these patterns might be.

The Dos and Don'ts of Response Papers:

**Remember : Response papers must be submitted on time. They will be evaluated on the basis of focus, development, use of evidence, creativity, and level of insight. They will count as 30% of your final grade, and be graded on a 10 pt. scale each. Additionally, I will drop your lowest response.

Reading Response Activities

What are reading response journals.

Reading response journals and menus are the perfect way to have your students writing about what they read. All you need to get started is a notebook! In this notebook, students respond to books, articles, and texts through writing.

What do students write about in reading response journals?

Choice, choice, choice! I think it’s important that students get to choose what they write about when responding to reading. I have monthly reading response menus that can be glued inside of notebooks so students can choose how they respond!

Let’s be honest, sometimes we forget to change our monthly menus, so I also included some generic reading choice boards . This allows you to switch them out whenever you want or need to!

Printable Graphic Organizers

Sometimes when we want students to all respond to the same text, it’s helpful to have printable graphic organizers you can have students use. This allows you to easily collect them (no one wants to take home 25 notebooks!) and take a grade if you want!

For every monthly (or generic) response menu, there are corresponding graphic organizers! You can even print them at 80-85% so students can glue them into their notebooks!

How often should students respond to reading?

Please, please, PLEASE don’t require your students to this after everything they read. Honestly, would you want to write about what you read all the time? I don’t think so!

Remember, students need time to ENJOY what they’re reading!

Maybe you use reading response journals a couple times a week.

Maybe you just use it as a quick formative assessment. Find ideas here on how to keep students accountable (and take formative assessment data) without stacks and stacks of papers!

Find an ideal balance for your classroom and your students!

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Reading Response Assignment

Reading response assignment instructions.

During the course, you will be responsible for writing four reading responses. Three of these should be for texts we read together. The fourth should be an article you find on your own that addresses your chosen research question.

Approached with curiosity and seriousness, these reading responses will be helpful to both you and me—they’ll give you a lot of prewriting ideas for your papers, and they’ll give me more ideas about how to use these readings in our class and in other classes in the future. I’ll also get an earlier look at how you’re responding to the unit themes and turning them into potential essay topics, so I’ll be able to follow your progress more closely.

• Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains.
• Course vocabulary, both about sports and about critical reading and writing.
• Engagement with the text’s topic and knowledge ( understanding ); contextualization of the topic and awareness of related issues ( application and sy nthesis ).
• Writing skills: organization, supporting claims, editing.
• Demonstration of writing skills (see above).
• Engagement with a text at five levels of depth.
• Summary, description ( understanding ).
• Supporting an analytical claim ( analysis ).
• Supporting a claim about applicability or synthesis.
• Developing an evaluation based on critical reading, supporting that evaluation.

Your reading response will be about two double-spaced pages made up of five paragraphs, one of which demonstrates each of the following:

• Understanding of the reading. Summarize and describe the text. What is it about, in general? Where did it appear? When was it written? What is its genre? What else is part of it (pictures, videos, sub-sections, etc.)?
• It is important that your analysis paragraph have a topic sentence that makes a claim (“This reading is primarily aimed at women, which is clear because of …”), and the body of the paragraph provide textual evidence supporting that claim.
• You must address the following at the end of the paragraph: How does your experience help you to understand the reading differently, or how does the reading help you to think about your experience (or news event, etc.) differently?
• It is important that you name another essay you have read and make a specific connection here. You must then explore how that connection makes you re-think, re-consider, or re-understand something from one or both readings.
• Evaluation of the reading. Did you like it? Is it useful? What would you do differently? Who might like it? To whom would you recommend it? Choose one specific way to evaluate (from the examples here or otherwise) and support your evaluation briefly.

You do not need to answer each of the questions listed, but you must cover each of those five categories in a way comparable to the suggestions I’ve provided.

Criteria for Success

I will grade your reading responses out of 10 points based on your completeness and thoughtfulness.

A 10 point reading response

…thoroughly engages with each of the five categories, especially taking care to address the sub-points in analysis , application , and synthesis .

A 7-9 point reading response

…contains all five categories but may lack some depth or miss the sub-point questions; may not summarize the text quite correctly or quite thoroughly enough. Alternatively, it may have four excellent paragraphs and lack one required category entirely.

A 6-point or lower reading response

…will lack an entire paragraph or more, and/or will not demonstrate that the writer understands the categories and/or the reading. May lack organization. In some cases a low-scoring reading response may have five paragraphs, but some do not do the correct work of engaging with the text in the way assigned—it may have two paragraphs of application and none of synthesis, for instance.

Each one is worth 2.5% of your total grade, for a total of 10% of your grade in this course. This is a formal, academic writing assignment.

Format and Submission

This is a formal writing assignment. It will be formatted as all formal work is in our course, with a heading, headers on subsequent pages, 1” margins on all sides, evidence of thorough editing, and so on. You will submit the assignment by the deadline on Canvas as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.

The Politics of Sports Copyright © by University of Oregon Composition Program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Engaging Resources for Teaching Literacy

By Sara Marye Leave a Comment

10 Engaging Reading Response Ideas For Upper Elementary Students

Are you teaching your students all the steps in the reading process ?

The reading process is something I came up with to help my kiddos understand that REAL reading is soooo much more than just reading the words in the text.

If we want to really understand what we read, we need to engage in all steps of the reading process each and every time we wit down to read a text… and one of those key steps is responding to reading.

Reading response is an important part of the reading process. When students respond to their reading it helps them to apply key comprehension strategies and also assists them with internalizing what they read – think of it like reading the actual text is the input, and creating a response is the output… responding to a text we read is evidence that thinking took place during the reading process. 

It’s not uncommon for students to lose interest or get bored with their “respond to reading” routine, which means as teachers, we need to constantly be thinking about ways we can keep our students engaged and excited about responding to reading.

In this post, you’ll get 10 ideas that will keep your students engaged and excited about responding to reading.

But first, let’s talk about WHY we want our students to respond to reading.

Purpose of responding to reading:

We want our students to be THINKING while they are reading and assigning a reading response activity/prompt/assignment reminds students to think, while they are reading. 

Reading response assignments provide accountability – Independent reading is one of the best ways to help our students become stronger readers, but since there are 20 something students and only 1 teacher, we don’t always have time to listen to or monitor daily independent reading and regularly assigning or providing reading response assignments holds kids accountable to their independent reading. 

Responding to reading reinforces other important language skills: writing, listening, speaking, presenting… reading responses are one way that we can connect multiple key communication and language arts skills. 

1. Sticky Note Templates 

I love giving kids sticky note templates to use for their reading response assignments. If you haven’t figured out how to print on sticky notes yet, check out THIS blog post and THIS resource. These little graphic organizer templates are the perfect size for students to quickly jot down their thoughts while reading, but not overwhelm them or take up too much time to complete.

And one of the things I love about them is that students can stick them directly in their independent reading text or reading journal… they are one of my students all-time-favorite ways to respond to reading.

2. Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are such a great reading response assignment, and they really help students boost their comprehension as well. Here are some of the perks of using graphic organizers as your reading response assignments:

They help students visually organize their thinking

Students don’t have to write in complete sentences so writing doesn’t become a roadblock to responding to reading

You can usually find graphic organizers that are aligned to specific reading standards or skills (if you’re looking for some, check THESE out).

You can teach students how to create their own which means they will ALWAYS have the ability to respond to reading… all they will need is paper and pencil.

3. Choice Boards

Anytime you can give your students a choice in how they respond, you will see an instant increase in engagement… which will lead to an increase in comprehension. I love giving kids choice boards with a wide range of reading response activities.

I especially like to give kids options that appeal to a variety of learning styles… summarize the text you read…create a social media profile for the main character…create a comic strip to communicate the theme… draw a timeline of key events…write a letter to the author… the possibilities are endless.

If you regularly use choice boards in your classroom, one thing you can do to spice it up is let your students come up with the reading response ideas. You can have them all submit an idea on a notecard and then you can pick the 9 best options and turn them into a choice board.

Anytime students can give input, you’ll see an increase in investment and motivation… and this way your students are the ones doing all the hard work.

4. Response Question Stems 

I LOVE giving students a set of question stems/starters or thinking stems as an option for responding to reading…Question stems/starters are a great way to get students to naturally apply the skills/strategies you want them to become confident and independent readers. 

When we ask ourselves questions, our brains naturally want to find out the answers, so the more questions our students ask about the texts they are reading, the harder they are going to work to find the answers. 

This can be such an easy way to get students to respond to their reading:

You can give students a set of question stems on a book mark or a question ring and they can select which ones they want to answer in their reading journal…or on a sticky note… or on a note card. It’s a quick and easy way for them to respond to their reading.

OR you can have your students help you brainstorm a set of questions for a particular skill or read aloud and you can let your students pick the ones they want to answer. 

5. Book Review

Having students write a book review can be a quick, easy, and fun way to have them respond to their reading. When they are writing a book review, they have to apply a variety of reading skills to complete the book review:

Students have to summarize the key events in the text.

Students have to evaluate the author’s writing and determine if the text is worth reading.

Students have to think about the characters, setting, and key events and what made the text enjoyable/not enjoyable to read.

Students have to think about what they liked and didn’t like about the text.

6. Book Talks

I love using book talks as an option for reading response for a few reasons:

A book talk is a great reason/purpose to get students to intentionally reflect on and think about their reading.

It’s a great way to combine so many key communication skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking).

Students have fun putting together a book talk and sharing it with their classmates.

It’s a really easy way to introduce students to variety of book titles.

If you’ve never used book talks in your classroom, you can learn more about them in THIS blog post.

7. Thinking Routine Prompts

I love using thinking routines all throughout my instructional day and giving students the option of using a thinking routine as a reading response assignment was always a great way to get them to think meaningfully about what they were reading. A few of my favorites include:

Draw Label Caption – This prompt really appeals to students who like to draw or are really creative. Students will draw an image that captures the theme or a really important part of the text, then they will add in labels to point out key details in their illustration, and finally they will add in a caption for what they drew.

Sentence, Phrase, Word –  With this prompt, students would pick out the most important sentence, the most important phrase, and the most important word from what they have read. It’s a great exercise to get them to think about the most important details/main idea of the text.

I used to think, but now I think – This one works great for non-fiction. Students simply respond to this prompt after they have read something to share how their thinking about that topic has changed.

8. Coding a Text

This is an option that I would give students on occasion and all it is is letting them create a set of symbols to show their thinking about a text. Students could come up with a set of symbols to show their thinking….

? = I asked a question

Heart = my favorite place

! = something surprising

Letting students code a text is a great way to have them share their thinking about a text, but in a way that saves time and doesn’t put a TON of dependence on their writing ability – it keeps the focus on reading, while reminding them to think while reading. 

check out these resources!

9. Talk with a Friend 

Responding to a text doesn’t ALWAYS have to show up in written form. You can let your students talk to a friend as a form of reading response. One of my favorite ways to end my reading workshop was to give students 2-3 min to talk with a classmate about what they read and what they were working on. 

Students would take their independent reading text and go find a friend and they would each share their title, what reading skill they were working on, what they thought about the text, and just have a short little conversation about what they were reading. It was a quick and easy way to get them to talk about a text…. and I love that it was a chance for them to work on their speaking and listening skills.

10. No Response

Ok, ok, ok… so maybe this one isn’t really a reading response idea, but here me out… In case no one has given you this permission, let me go ahead and tell you that it is ok to have your students read just for the sake of reading… no response required.

So often we feel like we NEED to account for every single minute of our instructional day with some form of assessment or student product… and accountability is such a buzz word in education, that we forget our goal is to inspire and create life-long readers… and if that is what we are working towards, then we need to remember it is ok to let kids read just for the fun of it and not always respond. 

As much as we want our students to respond to reading (and we really do), more importantly, we want them to LOVE reading and in order to achieve that goal, sometimes we need to be ok with them reading just for fun. A few ways you can give your students a free pass with their reading response assignments, but still be intentional about it are with the following ideas:

Free Read Fridays – let your students read whatever they want just for fun on Fridays. No assignments needed. This is also a great way for you to get caught up on grading or assessments.

3 out of the 5 days of IR must have some form of reading response – this is another great option that gives students some choice. They know that they get 2 days of free choice reading and 3 days of reading response assignments, but they get to pick which days they are.

By the end of the week you must have…. I love using this option. This lets students decide when and how they want to complete their reading response assignments. You set the assignments, they decide when they want to get them done… they just have to have them done by the end of the week.

Just a few reminders…

Now that you have all these ideas for reading response assignments, let me end with just a few reminders:

Make sure you regularly switch up your reading response routine. If you are intentional about introducing new options for reading response assignments, or regularly assigning new options, your students will remain engaged and motivated…. and with so many ideas in this post, try to introduce a new idea each month.

Teach it before you assign it. No matter what the assignment is… if its a sticky note, a graphic organizer, a choice board, or a book talk. Make sure you clearly and explicitly teach your students HOW to complete the reading response assignment before you assign it.

Give students choice. With so many options available, try to give your students a choice in which reading response assignment they want to complete whenever possible. Choice is such a great way to engage your students and ensure they are putting forth their best effort.

Happy reading. Happy responding.

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Internet in Disbelief Over Child's Answer on Spelling Assignment

A picture appearing to show one child's wild answer to a spelling homework assignment has drawn an astonished response on social media—but not for the reasons you might have thought.

In a post titled "Kids today," a Reddit user writing under the handle u/moncking shared an answer sheet from a seemingly straightforward quiz asking whoever it was assigned to correctly spell out a series of jumbled-up words.

At first glance, two of the answers filled in appear entirely correct and nothing out of the ordinary. "Gnerey" is turned into "energy" while "etrse" becomes "trees." However, things take a pretty surprising turn when it comes to the unidentified student's answer to "srtha."

According to the sheet, they think the answer in this instance is "shart," a slang term for the expulsion of feces while breaking wind. This, obviously, is incorrect (the answer is "trash"), but the fact that whoever filled in the sheet put this down as an answer was enough to send social media into a meltdown.

You can take a look at the homework here . Newsweek reached out to u/moncking for comment on the post but could not verify the details of its origins.

Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of correct spelling. A 2017 research paper published in the journal Educational Assessment identified a significant correlation between spelling scores among first-grade children and better word reading and decoding.

But while it's one thing to misspell a seemingly straightforward spelling homework assignment like the one shared on Reddit, interpreting the answer to be something entirely different and of a very explicit nature was what stood out for many on social media who saw the unnamed student's response.

At the time of writing, the post has been upvoted over 21,000 times with Redditors both stunned and amused by it.

Some admitted that, despite knowing the student's answer was wrong, they were struggling to come up with the correct one themselves.

"Guys I think I'm stupid..." one user wrote. Another agreed, commenting: "Initially I thought this was one of those 'the kids are not alright posts,' like showing what's wrong with education. 'I'm reading it like, "damn, I can't believe that kid wrote 'shart' when it's clearly.........'"

A third asked: "Is this really a kids test? Because as an adult, I find it super hard."

Thankfully, someone else was on hand to provide the correct answer . They explained: "I think this is a recycling workbook of some sort."

Even so, another who got the correct answer admitted it "took me way too long to figure that out." Bizarrely, some even wanted to defend the student's use of the word, writing: "Shart is 100 per cent a legitimate modern word. I'll die on that hill."

Others, meanwhile, were left worried for the future of their kids, although that was mainly because they couldn't seem to work out the answers to any of the questions on the spelling assignment. As one worried parent put it: "My kids are screwed when they get to homework age if they need me."

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