I enjoy essay writing as my school defines it. Nothing gives me quite the same jolt as pulling a thesis out of thin air and constructing a work of bullshit mastery in under an hour's time. Given the right mix of a good book for a subject and the pressure of an extreme time limit my pen will fly. I have been slowly indoctrinated into this method of composition since my freshman year, and, as my sources tell me, will stay on that well-worn path until the end of college. My teachers have created a rhetorical monster.
The full recipe for a speed writer is as follows:
- Three pinches of simple work with preparation combined with multiple choice tests and excessive note-taking. Out-of-class book reports a must.
- AP World History with a teacher who demands that every word be relevant to the prompt.
- Seven or so exercises in strict formatting with more excessive note-taking.
- Out-of-class literary criticisms and group discussions followed by AP English Language essays.
- In-class AP English Literature essays with strict prompt and book limitations.
Add some oregano and stir for four years. Results may be tedious and snobbish if not stirred properly.
Where does all this education go? Certainly not to the stomach, but not quite to the brain either. My guess would be the bladder - no absorption, just the repeated pissing out of a tired formula. Sure, my prose is pleasing to the eye. I can argue with pinache. My commas are all in the right places, my verbs properly conjugated. But to what end? When I try to think about world affairs, let alone myself, all that comes out is, "Kafka uses his character's unexpected transformation as a means of portrarying alienation in an industrial society." That's really no help at all when it comes to discussing progressive causes. It has also made me a coward, looking for cheap thrills in easy discussions where I am confident that I am in the right. I don't look for new ideas - I get a rush out of regurgitating old ones.
English class has, at least for me, always been a place to talk about the ideas of others in ways that will please the teacher. Instead of being about creativity and inward analysis, which fall under the uses of written expression, it focuses on why Ethan Fromme so loved the color red. It has made me a champion of AP essays, but a creative cripple. So Catch-22 is about bureaucracy - why not evaluate how that relates to life now, and have us write opinion pieces? Why are we not allowed to research the context of Caucasia and debate whether the "canary in a coal mine" theory is true or not? Why are we not given assignments to write short stories or memoir pieces? My ideal English class would not be geared to a purely grade-related goal - it would be one where the students could develop opinions along with technical skills. What a world this would be if everyone could both think and express their thoughts.
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On your last "Grade-based class" comment: I do come from a school where our ideas and opinions are highly valued, and it is a blessing. I do agree that there should be a much larger creative writing portion to the class... possibly to get out all of the dry, cynical wit.
I also agree with you about the distinction between an English essay and just about every other essay you're going to write. An English essay is a formula, but it gives you room to breath and flow through your ideas... Yet, a history essay, is proof proof proof and follows even more of a formula, but you can make a pretty crazy statement within your limits (I managed to pull off a "because Roosevelt died he caused the Cold War" essay). There's much more nit-picky differences between the two - the generalized versions look more similar than I intended - types of essays.
The thing that gets me is switching back and forth between them.
I think that, even though it's a formula that we've grown well-equipped to handle but rather tired of, we're developing our skills to prove a point and think on our feet with an argument.
Elliott
www.youtube.com/MechanisticMoth
www.myspace.com/PseudoPsychicAccumulation
of course we're all afraid of being wrong, but it shouldn't stop you from expressing your thoughts and feelings in whatever way you manage to do so. Have you ever stopped to think that expressing your individual ideas could feel just as rewarding as "being right"? and in a place like this, or anywhere for that matter, whether you are right or wrong is usually a figment of our imagination. It is something several people come to agree upon, but not everybody always agrees.
Just remember that they're only opinions.. and opinions are that and only that, they cannot change the fact that your opinion is what it is. Whatever anyone thinks about what you write won't make it any better or worse, so just go and write like you do in class but this time, do it to please yourself and not anybody else.
~Bookworm62591♥
Oh, I've thought about it. This blog was just the culmination of weeks of angst. And, yeah, it does feel good to put something out there that's uncomfortable, now that I've tried it.
Thank you for the kind words and advice. : D
T.k.
Hope you never have to take an upper division history class, then. Speed writing just doesn't fly there.
~C
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oh there are lower division classes where it doesn't fly either.
"write an 8-12 page paper describing the differences and similarities between the Phoenix Health Care System and the Boston Health Care System."
That was definitely in the prereq's to nursing school...
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/sawaboof
"...There is a crushing guilt that comes with being a Catholic. Whether things are good or bad or you're simply... eating tacos in the park, there is always the crushing guilt."
-30 Rock-
Yeah, I only took two lower division courses where I had to write... one was a history class, and I wrote most of my papers for that like two days before they were due. The other was an English literature class, and I pretty much did the same thing there. None of my other lower division courses were writing intensive.
~C
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Well, it'll make for a nice change, at the very least.
T.k.
*blink* I thought speedwriting was just... writing fast?
I meant it here as writing essays in very short periods of time, which limits their quality. It's the sort of writing required on AP tests, which are less about what you know than how quickly you can spit it out.
T.k.