The reader response criticism that has arisen in direct response to the New Criticism can be adapted to the needs of the developing writer through its emphasis upon the experience of the reader engaged with the text. The reader response approach generates content--helps the developing writer find something to say--and facilitates the process wherein literary content, or what is happening to someone else, makes writers remember what happened to them. Students, instead of writing critiques, can write response statements that record the perception of a reading experience and its natural, spontaneous consequences, among which are feelings or effects, and peremptory memories and thoughts, or free associations. Developing writers can improve style by discovering patterns in literary sources through imitation or through emphasizing the response to literary forms. Class assignments may move from complete emphasis upon the experience the literary work evokes to emphasis upon the experience of the text. In summary, the inventive application of the principles of reader-response criticism can make writers out of developing writers. (EL)