For one instructor of eleventh and twelfth grade English, teaching the short story offers the best opportunity to teach fiction writing to students. It contains all the elements novels contain, but students can read many short stories in the same time they need to read a novel. Students can also write their own short stories. Above all, literature is crucial in problem solving and in critical thinking. After reading peer-reviewed short stories on the Internet, the students were given material no one else had commented on and allowed to use their critical eyes and become judges of good or bad literature. The students read nine short stories from "Verbiage Magazine" and selected four or five as the centerpiece for an essay. The essay was to be followed by the writing of a short story. Their essays and short stories were published on the Internet on their "Webfolios." They became aware of audience because of the listserv and the webfolios. Eventually, the class gets to the classics and the traditional compare and contrast. The classics should be especially enjoyable for the students because they will know how to read them on their own terms and not on someone else's terms, and they will be able to defend their opinions and present a logical argument. The project evolved into a three-step process: first, the class analyzes a classic short story; then they compare and contrast a classic and a contemporary short story; and finally, the students write their own short story. This constructivist move from the traditional reader response paradigm is designed to be truly more satisfying for the students and the teacher. (NKA)