Responding to Literature

When your teacher asks you to write a "Response to Literature," you are being asked to write about your ideas. The RTL, as it is frequently known, is an opportunity for you to explore a book, poem or story instead of explaining it.

Characteristics of Excellent RTLs

Excellent RTLs typically have the following characteristics:

• they explore your thoughts on an idea in the text
• they use text evidence (quotes) to support your thoughts
• they make connections

Types of Connections

There are three basic types of connections you can make (note the presence of text in each type of connection):

• text-to-text: connections within the work; how an idea on page 78 reminds you somehow of something that happened on page 26.
• text-to-self: connections between the text and your lived experience; this is sort of self-explanatory, isn’t it?
• text-to-world: connections between the text and your observed experience; your observed experience of the world includes your understanding of other people’s experiences (family, friends and acquaintances), books you’ve read, plays, movies and TV shows you’ve watched, and any other way you might learn something about the world.