Two Thumbs Up

Yesterday I taught a lesson on the reader/writer relationship in my freshman composition class. I've taught this lesson a few times before, but I thought I might change it a bit.

I began by asking the students to list specific things they enjoyed reading and why, then what they didn't enjoy reading and why. I drew two columns on the board: one labeled Thumbs Up and the other Thumbs Down.

To my surprise, the thumbs-up category crowded the other. And with good literature, too. The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, The Little Prince, The Things They Carried. What's more, their reasons for listing these works in the thumbs-up category wasn't to gain my favor. (At least not entirely.) The students cited how enjoyable or easy the novels were to read, how they had engaging plots and characters with whom they empathized.

And the thumbs-down column? Emma, The Awakening, Twilight ("It's so clichéd," one student complained), and, oddly, Catcher in the Rye. They didn't like the characters, they didn't care for the language.

In the end, we discussed good and bad writing for about forty minutes—about twenty-five minutes longer than I had planned. But that was ok. By the end of the discussion, students were nodding their heads. Oh, their body language said, I'm writing for a reader. I hope that not only will these students be able to better recognize good writing, but they will also be more inclined to create it themselves.