To investigate whether and how commercial software products for literature do or could complement response-based pedagogy, an extensive review of existing applications was undertaken. Teams of language arts teachers, both preservice and inservice, met weekly to initially discuss and share observations regarding the potential of multimedia to support and enhance response-based approaches to the teaching and learning of literature. Preparation for weekly discussions entailed reading research from both the multimedia and response-based literatures, and examining multimedia applications across content domains. This approach was based on the belief that building up a sense of multimedia's potential was best achieved by first establishing general knowledge as to what the technology is capable of, and using this as a point of departure for participants to envision what response-based multimedia would ideally look like. That is, the researchers did not want teachers' attitudes toward multimedia and the teaching of literature to be influenced either positively or negatively by first examining literature applications. On the contrary, the researchers wanted the teachers to dream freely. A total of 49 multimedia applications for literature were reviewed by teacher/reviewer teams--24 applications were designed for elementary students, 25 for secondary. Through this process, teachers developed a list of desirable features for their ideal applications. Results, which were copious, were divided under headings on critical issues and "desiderata" (which lists 11 features that teachers would desire in multi-media services). (Contains 2 tables of data and 11 references.) (TB)