The free writing responses of 120 gifted/average Australian high school students (grades 8, 10, and 12) to a short story and a poem were coded according to Alan Purves' categories--engagement, perception, interpretation, evaluation, or miscellaneous--to detect any patterns of differences. The students also provided data about their preferences for the school-based study of literature and for literature in an informal setting. For the story and poem either combined or taken separately, there were significant decreases in engagement responses and increases in interpretation responses from grade 8 to grade 12. The poem prompted less retelling and greater problems with narrative language than the story. No sex differences in responses were observed, but superior students provided significantly less engagement and more evaluation responses than average students. The eighth and tenth grade students expected to focus on matters of content and structure in short stories, while tenth and twelfth graders ranked literary devices and language as the most important aspects of poetry study. All students considered personal involvement of greatest importance in the informal study of literature. These response patterns place the Australian students closer to the American students than either the English or New Zealand students of prior studies. (RL)