A real essay

I found Graham’s article ‘The Age of the Essay’ to be relatively spot on. I loved English in high school, however I was always curious as to why we devoted majority of our English lessons to deciphering Shakespeare’s disheveled language and identifying themes in Austen’s love stories. I did actually grow to quite enjoy studying historic novels in English, but it does seem strange that now I think about it, we had no variety whatsoever. I could not agree more with the following passage from Graham’s article:

 

Certainly schools should teach students how to write. But due to a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing has gotten mixed together with the study of literature. And so all over the country students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in Dickens.

Graham then goes on to talk about the power of aruging in an essay. He compares high school essays to university ones, in that in high school you generally just persuaded and chucked some quotes in. But in ‘real’ essays, such as university essays, you have to be more spot on with research.

Good writing should be convincing, certainly, but it should be convincing because you got the right answers, not because you did a good job of arguing.

There are many other more specific aspects discussed in Graham’s article, however my main takeaway idea was that secondary schooling needs more variety in the writing styles taught. Shakespeare and Austen are still very much welcome, but there is definitely some room in there for some ‘real’ writing.

Well, at least some students like Shakespeare.                                    (Source: <http://cheezburger.com/5894371584>)