There are excellent reasons to have students write about assigned readings. They need practice writing and should be challenged to explore and express their views by developing them in writing. As an instructor, I like to read student papers when their writers are engaged with an idea—energetic, emphatic, and fluent. But what about times when students have nothing to say and fill out several pages of lifeless prose to prove it? There is no joy in writing or reading work like that. Recently I’ve tried a new approach that aims to prepare students to write more compellingly about texts.