Tiering Up: Tier List Anything

Even your tears...

For this presentation, you will create and share a tier list with the class. Your job is to tier anything—yes, anything—using between 5 and 10 items. You may use the traditional letter tiers (S, A, B, C, D, F) or invent your own (e.g., “God Tier,” “Emotional Damage Tier,” “Why Does This Exist Tier,” etc.).

Your topic must be school-appropriate, but beyond that, you have complete creative freedom. Your items should have some kind of theme—but remember, this is Creative Writing: even the lack of a theme is… a theme.

Possible Topic Types

Traditional / Normal Topics

Try to make them interesting, strange, or unexpectedly profound.

Cereal

Fast food sauces

Writing utensils

Classroom chairs

Fruits ranked by emotional support potential

Dark (but still appropriate) Topics

Explore the dramatic, the existential, or the academically traumatic.

Assignments that broke you spiritually

The stages of academic grief

Group project NPC archetypes

Reasons you’re tired (ranked by accuracy)

Absurd / Surreal Topics

Lean into the weird.

Times in your life you accidentally felt like an NPC

Random noises your house makes at night

Things you could probably fight (and things you absolutely couldn’t)

The personalities of your phone battery percentages

Types of silence (e.g., “Teacher Waiting Silence,” “Awkward Hallway Eye Contact Silence”)

Meta / Philosophical Topics

If you overthink everything, embrace it.

Human emotions ranked by texture

Days of the week as villains

Concepts that should not have power over you (but do anyway)

Weather patterns inside your brain

Your Task

Create a visual tier list (Google Slides, Canva, or paper), present it to the class, and explain why each item belongs in its assigned tier. Be creative, be weird, be thoughtful, be funny—your choice.