the good, the bad & the downright sad

Today I asked my freshman classes to respond to these questions, "Why is literature important? Why is the ability to write well important?"

Here is a selection of responses. Please note that most of these are not the entire answer, and I didn't include the vast majority of generic answers - just the outliers.

Why is literature important?

“It inspires people. It gives them something to think about. Literature is an art form, an entertainment. Without it we have lost a strand of our cultural DNA.”

“Of all the subjects, literature is perhaps amongst the most important. It shows us the ideas and ways of the past. It also expands our vocabulary and imagination. It can also teach us to display our thoughts for others in an effective manner.”

“Sometimes reading can be fun. It can make us think about it and stuff.”

“When you go on in life you will need to know how to write “thank you” letters and also you will need to know how to write and do other things when you go to get a job.”

“Not only is it entertainment, but also it can tell us about other cultures. It also can test our imagination.”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure what lititure is, but I think I have an idea. I think it is important because without it, you wouldn’t be able to get through school. Also you couldn’t even know how to get through life, because I think lititure is reading, so you wouldn’t even be able to do a simple thing like driving when you get older.”

“You get to read interesting and maybe fun stories sometimes. Also reading literature gives you an imagination about the story and helps you enjoy reading a lot more.”

“It helps your mind to grow and gain knowledge. I really think it is important to learn something new everyday. Reading, I think, if you’re reading a good book, gives life to your soul.”

“Because when you read, you form an opinion on what you are reading. So, if you don’t read, you cannot learn how to have your own opinion and you will just go by what others say.”

"Literature helps us understand different ways to look at the world other than the way we usually look at it."

“If you don’t understand what your reading or if there was nothing for us to read, we wouldn’t be able to learn much and get mature by reading things others may have gone through.”

"Literature is a necessary ingredient for a comprehensive student."

"Literature (not derived from "litter") exposes people to ideas, culture, and philosophy to which they are unaccustomed. It stretches the mind. It asks and attempts to answer serious questions. In some cases, it can even be humorous or otherwise entertaining. Some is informational, some is advisory, some is politically incorrect, some is excellent, some is terrible, some is for fun, some is about making toast... well, you get the point."

 

Why is the ability to write well important?

“When you write something other people are most likely going to read it, and you want it to look nice. When you can write well it makes you look nice and smart and it shows that you know what your talking about. Hmm… that’s all I can think of!”

“... because you will use it your whole life. Students need to be able to write essays for school. Also, students need to have the ability to write a complete sentence and explain something. This can be used for class work as well as essays.”

“When it comes to essays you have to be able to write well because its graded on everything you write.”

“Writing well is a great skill to have so that if you need to write a note to someone and you don’t have a computer you can write clearly enough so that the person can read the note.”

“So others can understand our writing. It will be easier to write when we know what we are doing and not looking everything up.”

“Writing well is in my opinion, a really excellent ability to have and will help you to do better in anything that involves writing.”

“You have to write in every subject. It is good to write well because you usually have to write a lot of essays and things like that.”

“Writing well is essential or somewhat. Writing well does make it an easier way to express ones feelings through books.”