Define "good," please ...

The thought of starting a blog as a class assignment came with many feelings on my part: 1) excitement because I would finally have to start blogging - something I've wanted to try for ages, 2) frustration because it meant that it was something else I would have to keep up with throughout the year and thus something else I will ultimately procrastinate on, and 3) fright because now I'm expected to present something that anyone can read whenever they want, and I'm expected to be thoughtful and entertaining? I don't know about this ...

First of all, I should start by facing the reality that probably not many people will want to read a class-assigned blog, so feeling 3 shouldn't be much of a problem. Also, hopefully feeling 1 will continue, thus making feeling 2 non-existent (please please please ...). So all-in-all, I'm left feeling ... nothing? Oh well, I'll figure that one out later and get back to you. :-)
On to what prompted me to put aside my not-so-exciting reading material and begin the arduous task of putting together this blog. What makes writing "good"? If feeling 3 bothers me so much, how can I go about ensuring that my ultimate failure as a blogger will not come about?

In reality, this question began with an assignment I had for school where I was to reflect on what writing meant to me (If you're thinking it's the same class that wants us to practice writing by blogging, you would be correct! Must be a writing class, right?). I began blabbing about how words are powerful and can carry meaning and how song lyrics, poems, and newspaper articles can stir emotions and actions in people through the arrangement of letters representing words in order to ultimately convey ideas. While I certainly believe all these things to be true (yes - I tend to romanticize things), I began wondering why I happened to like Pride and Prejudice and A Tale of Two Cities but (many) others - most of them my high school classmates - do not. Or why I might think Justin's Bieber's music is ridiculous and unimportant (but I will give him catchy), while it causes another girl to become hysterical and ultimately meet her teen idol on late-night television. Either way, the best I could come up with was that critique is objective ... and really, didn't we all know that already?

I would be denying you another several paragraphs of inconclusive rambling if I didn't tell you another instance that happened only moments ago that led me to further ponderings (No, this is not a word. I checked. While this would usually bother me to the extent of needing a stress ball to calm down, I tend to make up words when I converse normally, so in an attempt to sound "natural" and conversational in my writing, I'm allowing it.). While attempting to read a school book (yes, the same mentioned above in the second paragraph), I could not help but try to figure out why this author thought the first four paragraphs (which turned into two pages, which turned into four) were worth including in a textbook and what value they offered me as a teacher-in-training. Then I began to think about all those textbooks (and pleasure books) that I'd "read" throughout my life (I use "read" loosely because the literature of which I'm about to speak often ended up either being put aside or lightly skimmed and marked with a pretty highlighter so I could pretend it offered something of substance to my learning experience) where I'd sat there and thought, "Why am I reading this?"

I know you know what I'm talking about. We've all encountered some form of literature where we've been completely dumbfounded as to the point (Some of you may consider this to be one of those examples ... and in some ways, I would definitely agree with you. Yet, at the same time, I would argue that the Internet is not necessarily known as the most credible source for valuable information, so that's your fault.) of its existence in print. You know those books where you sit and try to read, but find yourself reading the same page over and over again and you still haven't understood what's going on? Ding, ding, ding!

So while "reading" this book, I wondered if this author considered their writing "good." And I'm certainly not trying to discredit this author; you'll (hopefully) see my point in a minute. Let's look at it this way: this author has succeeded in not only comprising a little over 250 pages all concerning something they find important to education, but in getting a publishing company to realize a similar importance of these pages and the words they contain and as a result, it prints them in mass quantities. Then, one of my teachers must have heard about this book or come across it and deemed it worthy to represent the class I'm about to take and the objectives we're to accomplish throughout the semester. Wow. Quite an accomplishment.

And yet, so far I can barely make it through five pages without wondering why this is going to help me in my future classroom. Now, I would need to gather the opinions of others who've read this book by questioning my classmates, reading book reviews, etc., so my question of whether it is truly "good" or not has yet to be even remotely touched upon.
But, I thought I'd at least raise the question. So next time you're reading a book, see if you can figure out why someone thought it was worth being selected to help "educate the masses." And maybe decide whether you think that reason is applicable to you and the things you want/need to read. Because the words in that text might not matter much to me, but that doesn't mean my opinion can determine a piece of literature as "good." So what do you think? What qualities should a piece of literature possess to make it truly "good"? Think about it. Then, (ready, set) write me back.