What are essays? Why are they important? Truth be told, we’ve been writing them since childhood, before we even knew it.
For the record, essays come in eight basic types* –
Descriptive, Definition, Compare/Contrast, Cause/Effect, Narrative, Process, Argumentative, and Critical – Nine types if you include the elusive Combination of All Eight Types in One – The Motherlode!!
Our letters to Santa were likely our very first essay efforts. Who didn’t describe the toys they wanted, compare and contrast their behavior with that of a sibling in a critical manner, or narrate all the instances of their good behavior further arguing their model citizenship should be considered the cause to effectively be granted their wishes? These “innocent” requests would form the basis for every written communication we’ve gone on to have in our adult lives.
Essays were once the final element of every PSAT, SAT, ACT, GRE and any other standardized test when I was in school so very long ago. I’m not sure what’s going on with testing these days but I do remember wondering at the time who was going to read all of those essays we wrote and feeling a little sorry for them and us. I couldn’t imagine everyone getting a fair shake from some adults with very tired eyes and minds who were tasked to read similar responses in semi-legible script from thousands of adolescents who were awake at 8am on a Saturday morning armed with two #2 pencils to do battle with a million dots – “UGH! We’ve got to write something too?!”
Essays have been disguised as “Term Papers” for years. Those are the really LONG essays which require documentation for the fifty times the same conclusion is stated in the various ways an essay allows using different words for each instance. A great many of these have been written at the last minute with some sort of anti-sleep agent.
It is unfortunate people have been happy enough to receive the B or C grade for two nights work when a most certain A+ would have been rewarded had the writing of the paper actually originated when the assignment was received – at the beginning of the class some four and one half months earlier. Yeah. Right. I’m sure there were some students like that, the ones who actually had the forethought to borrow the books and periodicals from the library ahead of time so others couldn’t gain access to them at the last minute. “Unavailable? What?!” (Why would that seem odd if everyone was taking the same class and had the same assignment due the same day?)
I fell in love with writing during my freshman year of high school when we were encouraged to keep a journal to record our thoughts, feelings, ideas, jokes…whatever we had the urge to commit to paper, in a class called Life – really – It was called Life Class.** Once I got started keeping a journal, I never stopped. I had written some things in grades K-8 and been smitten but the idea of it all being in one place forever was love.
There have been the prolific years where I’ve filled several books and the very lean years when I lost my voice and felt unable to even say hello to myself. There was the one instance where some lovesick thing I had committed to paper mortified me and, lest anyone ever read those innermost feelings, I was driven to tear the pages from the book. (High School – go figure. I just remember the awful feeling that we wouldn’t be together forever. Teenagers.)
Almost immediately I folded and placed the torn pages in an envelope and put them back into the book vowing to never again be ashamed of anything I wrote. I was more moved by the destruction of my journal than I was about my destroyed feelings documented on those pages.
From that time on I started to write in Composition books which are bound by a thread down the center. If ever a page is torn out to be discarded the entire book is compromised and falls apart. That is how I came to view my journals as an analogy of my life. If ever a page is torn out and discarded the rest will fall apart. All life’s pages are essential. Writing essays helped me to accept each event for the importance of the role it plays. It all happens for a reason and has a distinct purpose. Eventually it will become clear – or not. Either way, there’s a reason for it and I can write about it.
GotThatWrite.com is my effort to revive the art of the essay, be it a funny memory, an unexpressed emotion, or a pet peeve. Every memorandum, love letter, written praise or complaint for good or poor service, rehearsed conversation on paper, long speech or short talk is an essay. We are none a stranger to them.
It is not my goal to single handedly populate this website but for the sake of getting things started I have provided some selections. You are invited to Be My Guest to share a story or a feeling, a thought or a memory at GotThatWrite.com in any of nine categories, using all applicable definitions:
Think, Feel, Smile, Taste, Remember, Listen, Watch, Go, Do
There are so many great voices out here yet to express themselves. There are so many great voices out here we’ve heard before and want to hear from again. There is so much to learn and so many ways we can teach each other. Please, Be My Guest. Use your words.
There are no prescribed lengths or topics. You will retain ownership of your individual work. The only request is to submit things you would not be ashamed to share with your parents or your adult children.
Thank you for your time.
Mary Lawrence
*Some schools of thought list only four types of essays, but not the school I attended. The four types basically serve to incorporate two or more of the eight I’ve mentioned under single headings. I’m of the opinion that having a list of all eight basic approaches makes for less confusion.
** Life Class will be described, explained and analyzed in a future essay. It really was quite something and really did make a difference.