Blair, I’d love to see you do a post on critical reading/commenting on other’s work — it’s an art in itself.

In my experience taking several creative writing classes, too many aspiring authors are afraid to give (and receive) criticism of their work. I think it leads to a lot of vapid, directionless, and flawed assignment writing that just gets passed over as quickly as possible in reads, as opposed to a situation where the student actually COULD learn something if some of his or her peers got up the nerve to note that part of the story didn’t work, and gave suggestions on how to fix it.

Don’t support your class too much. Make them talk to each other as literary peers, make them discuss the stories. It’s important that they learn to be part of a *writing community*, not just learn to write.