what's the point of studying bad literature?

I have actually enjoyed reading all three texts that we have studied in class, perhaps that's just because I like to read, good book or not; however, I have not enjoyed dissecting them. I imagine this is because there is very little to dissect in bad literature. I think that is, in part, my discovery regarding what makes a book "bad". Though, I find it necessary to point out that the adjective "bad" is vague, and fits in the category of adjectives to use when one is just to lazy to find a more suitable one. No offense of course, the title of the class is enticing and sold me, I mean, I am enrolled in it; though, when we are discussing a particular book, it isn't enough to say that it's just "bad", really what does that mean? What this point has lead me to is that we are often quick to judge something by adding an ambiguous, thoughtless adjective when there are many more appropriate words that could be used, and I have come to understand this more thoroughly in this course. I find it useful to study bad literature partly to learn how to talk about literature that we are not normally exposed to in university. Most of us can express why a book is well written, but not why it is poorly written.

Another reason that I find this class useful is that we are to become adept at critical analysis of bad literature, which translates into the ability to critically analyze "bad" media of all sorts. We are surrounded by trashy pop culture that so many of us guiltily indulge in, but it is useful to have the tools to at least observe with awareness. Sometimes we are not even willing participants in our exposure to media, billboards, ads in newspapers, the radio in a coffee shop... I prefer to be at least able to take a more active role in my media exposure, both intentional and unintentional exposure, in that I can be aware of what I am being fed instead of being a passive watcher/listener/reader and just taking everything in. Critical analysis is an important tool to acquire in order to be prepared for what we are exposed to in our daily lives.

More along the lines of what we are supposed to be discussing, themes that we have encountered in this course...
One interesting point that Jon has mentioned several times is the market place of literature. I had never put into terms before the idea of what audience the author is trying to reach: the mass market, from were he gets financial gain, or the cultural market from where he earns a higher status and notability in the academic community.
Also interesting, are the very different styles we have so far encountered in these three books. I think that, despite their obvious faults, and though I agree that they are all not such great works of literature, they at least have their own styles. Granted, nothing' s original, they are better than some really trashy pulp out there like Dan Brown's sad attempt at a writing career or, ugh, Danielle Steel. So I guess that perhaps these books are kind of a middle ground between good and bad literature (ah, middle-brow, I get that now). Now, I do realize that Coelho has a format that he probably follows in all of his books and this has worked for him and made him wealthy, but at least he puts forth a book with a moral in the form of a fable that you can read to children (I mean, I think The Alchemist would make a decent kids book). And Esquivel made an attempt at developing her own style, but, did you notice that almost every chapter is exactly fifteen pages long (I like to count, what can i say). This leads me to believe that she is following a format for each chapter, begins with a recipe, ends in a disaster, usually includes crying. But nonetheless, she has some sort of style of her own that would make a pretty good short story. And Allende's story had a style of her own, what made that book disappointing was the rushed and contrived ending. (like this one)