Good Literature=Good Writing

Literature is not something that should be examined as something completely separate from writing. As most teachers know, to be a good writer, one must also be a good reader. I recently looked at a chapter from Tom Romano’s book Clearing The Way in which he talks about how had been working feverishly to intertwine literature with writing in the classroom. It begins simply with students writing their own versions of literature, as one says, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. However, the students are expected to go beyond the typical “imitation” of a literary work, but the student must become so well versed in literature that he is able to create a work in the form of any genre on his own. 

This is something that is constantly pushed on students, even when students reach college. Multi-genre projects always seem to trickle their way into the syllabus of each freshman level english class. My first semester at Western I took freshman english and of course, there was a multi-genre project that was required by the end of the semester. This project was my dream project as I was able to create any genre that I pleased and anyone who has been versed in literature, knows how many options there are for genre. I toyed with the idea of many different genres but eventually chose to make a children’s fairytale picture book. 

Interestingly enough, as I am teaching an introductory course to freshman english, a multi-genre project is also required of the students. This makes one question, why do multi-genre projects continue to show up not only in high school classrooms but also in college class? Romano explains it quite well, he states that when students are able to create the genres they study on their own and attach personal importance to them, they have dug much deeper in their learning than just simply imitating the work of the author (136). 

For this reason, I highly encourage teachers to expose their students to all different kinds of literature, not just the typical “classics”, not all students are going to be in interested in the complexity of Animal Farm or care about the class differences in The Great Gatsby, thus students should be exposed to all kinds of literature, both contemporary and classic. A great resource for teachers to find many different books to teach or recommend to their students is Good Reads. Check it out if you need a little brain boost for the classroom.