In a required class on literature and composition at Eastern Illinois University, students learn about the short story by writing one of their own. Their stories then become the context for an introduction to literary terminology such as point of view, setting, and use of dialogue versus narration. Having just written their own stories, students know that these terms designate real decisions and they see that these choices affect how, as readers, they now understand the stories. For the second assignment, students write a one-page analysis of their own stories in which they discuss their own work in the third person, showing how narrative technique, characterization, setting, dialogue, and plot structure all contribute to the story's impact. This forces them to recognize the dual role of their writing as at once something they did and the object of someone else's perception. The third assignment is a more formal, graded essay analyzing one story in their anthology from the standpoint of a single issue. With this assignment they realize how creative analysis is an act of complicity and cooperation between author and reader, not the passive appreciation of another's greatness. Teaching composition and literature appreciation simultaneously encourages inventiveness in both. (SRT)