Recently, I was at a conference where a professor was arguing for a required “Great Books” course that every freshman would take. He was lamenting the poor grammar and writing ability of incoming students, and believed that requiring them to read the masters would improve their own writing. He finished by recommending books for this course, including titles by Chaucer, Milton, Melville and others. While I agree with his premise that reading good writing helps create good writers, his plan is a recipe for disaster. One thing we should have learned by now is that forcing people to read books they don’t like turns them off reading completely. No one but English majors should have to read the authors I listed above. As a freshman, I could hardly stand to read Chaucer and I WAS an English major!
The purpose of this post is to emphasize the importance of helping your introductory writing students find good models for them to follow; ones that they will actually enjoy reading. Most everyone will be able to find something they enjoy, once they agree to give it a try. To do this, early in your course, have students post a snippet of their favorite piece of writing. If they don’t have one, tell them to go find one and provide them some lists of great books for reluctant readers. Lots of libraries have these lists.
Once the students have identified the pieces, have them discuss what makes these examples so good. Have them look at the descriptions being used, the language the writer has chosen, and the overall sentence structure.
It’s important to note that they will not necessarily improve automatically from this exercise, but if you have them perform it for each example essay, story or book excerpt they read for the class, it will begin to sink in. Who knows, some of them may even begin to enjoy reading!
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