1. Choosing essay topics for students is a mistake as it leads to boring, uninspired writing. When the author first started teaching, they assigned standardized topics from textbooks which resulted in dull, passionless essays from uninterested students. 2. The author recalls hating writing assignments in grade school despite being a talented young writer because they were forced to respond to unengaging prompts. This aversion to writing continued through high school where they completed assignments out of obligation rather than interest. 3. After experimenting with letting students choose their own topics, the author found that interest, engagement, and writing quality dramatically increased. Students enjoyed the freedom and challenge of discussing and writing about topics they cared about. They provided

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White Paper
Why Choosing Student Essay Topics is a Huge Mistake
Infini P. Jemison-Ewing, MA
Composition Instructor
Chief Operations Officer
LOVMentoring, NFP
A Common Experience
When I first began teaching, I did what most novices do. I followed in the footsteps of my
predecessors. I adhered to the guidance of the basic syllabus provided and the textbook used as a
standard for my courses. I towed the line and accepted the results of countless assignments that
generated monotonous responses to dry prompts and questions over and over again.
For my efforts, I suffered the mindless torture of reading essays that routinely reflected the
boredom of their authors. The passionless scribbling and droning of students who have learned
to hate composing anything because they have no real interest in the topics that (many of them)
have already addressed in several previous writing classes over the course of their adolescent
education. Frankly, it was a painful process. Who wants to read twenty to sixty three-page
papers about the same thing, spouting the same quotes from sources that are creditable,
questionable, and ludicrous by turn? There are only so many times one can read about autism,
lowering the drinking age, or legalizing marijuana before their eyes begin to glaze over prior to
fully comprehending the contrived supports listed in the unimaginative thesis statements.
Most students don’t complain about writing assignments because they don’t know enough to do
so. The bulk of their educational existence consists of being told what to do and how to do it,
step by step. They approach the assignments in their freshman classes waiting to be told what to
do about every little thing, and this is not something they can be blamed for. In light of this
truth; however, it is clear that micromanaging so many details of the learning process is not
doing young learners any favors in the long run.

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I speak first from the viewpoint of an individual who clearly remembers her own educational
journey, personal hobbies, and how they clashed over the years. I was a writer by nature: poetry,
short stories, chapter books, comics, and songs. If I wasn’t reading, I was scribbling something
in notebooks and planning my next story. I loved writing and even won an award and an
invitation to a Young Writer’s Conference for my work. Then I found myself in my fourth grade
Language Arts class. My teacher (we’ll call her Mrs. B) was nice enough, but as I began to read
prompts and respond to them in outlines I found myself hating, despising, writing and not
understanding why.
Let’s fast forward to my senior year of high school. I loved my English teacher, Mr. M. He was
nice and mildly amusing. I appreciated his wit and energy, but the content bored me to tears.
The outlines and prewriting activities were especially tedious to me because I could have cared
less about what I was writing. By this time; however, I was accustomed to the process and
succumbed to it all without a murmur as a necessary evil.
Skip ahead one year to my first college composition course. The assignment was presented to
me: respond to this or that prompt in 5 pages. I was absolutely stumped. How do I write a 5
paragraph essay in 5 pages? Is that a paragraph per page? But a paragraph should only be about
7-8 sentences long, right? RIGHT?
Stepping Away from the Standard
Almost two decades later, this is what I see reflected back to me each semester when I face a
new group of first year students. Of course, some of this depends on the demographic of the area
I am teaching in at the time, but even in the districts with some of the most progressive modes of
instruction, more often than not my students have to overcome many strongly rooted insecurities
and misconceptions of writing, what it is, and what it can be.
After my first year of teaching Composition courses, it didn’t take long for me to begin
experimenting and daring to step away from the standard. First I decided to see what would
happen if I gave students a choice of topics, still found in the textbook. Immediately, interest
increased. Gradually students began to raise their hands, or pull me to the side and ask if they

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could write about a topic that was not mentioned in the book, because they had absolutely no
interest in any of the available topics. I allowed students to submit possible alternative topics for
approval. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had absolutely no valid reason
to refuse any topic. Moreover, as I began to observe students talking animatedly about their
papers with their peers, and to receive essays that were interesting, thoughtful, and well
developed, I knew that a bigger change was necessary.
I completely did away with preselected essay topics two years ago, and have adopted a
continually collaborative approach when it comes to guiding students on the path to clear,
thoughtful, and interesting writing that is relevant to their lives. Each class develops their own
list of topics that are often more complex, intellectual, and assorted than any that I have seen in
any textbook. I am convinced that when given the opportunity, students are much more astute
than many instructors give them credit for, and I have learned much by participating in the class
discussions led by students in small groups, partners, and as individuals.
The Payoff
More telling than these instances and some of the profound thoughts expressed in increasingly
well written papers, is the feedback received in my students’ periodic self and class evaluations.
Students love the freedom to write about what interests them, and frequently attest to the fact that
they have never had this choice before. They enjoy the opportunity to challenge and be
challenged by their peers. We have had lively discussions that have produced students who are
aware that it’s not enough to simply claim something to be true because they have believed it all
of their lives, but that they need to be prepared to back it up. This drives home the point of
supporting claims much better than just reading about it, or sitting in a lecture and taking notes.
Students are more invested in their writing, and as a result of interested peers who both agree and
disagree with them, they have something to prove. Students claim that they have learned, and in
some cases re-learned, to actually (gasp) enjoy English class. But the most rewarding feedback
that I have received is that the course taught them how to think, and this is half the battle. If
students find themselves with something to say, they are all the more invested in learning how to
say -and then write- it well.