“In school it [essay] is (or was) a written paper of a certain length, on an assigned subject with specified margins and neatness, due on the teacher’s desk at a certain date.”-Ian Frazier in “The Essay as Object”
So the educational “system” continues on, the basis of teaching the modern day student the fundamentals of writing falls on a structured assignment. Although these structured essays are an adequate test, and way to practice writing essays I believe that they lack in successfully stimulating an interest in writing. It is hard for a young writer to develop their own voice and style when they are restricted to following the guidelines often set down by the average writing composition teacher. Also, to often the subject chosen for the students to work with is less than enticing to the student, and results in the misconception that writing is “work”. I believe that essays should promote thinking, and not the resuscitation of those ideas which the teacher believes should be conveyed. Samuel Butler once wrote “I never make my books, they grow, and come to me instead.” Students should be given reign on the works they are prompted to create. For instance, one student might have adequately expressed himself in less than the assigned quota body for the essay, while another student may be cramping their ideas and styles to fit within the boundaries created. Standardization pushes writers to conform to certain methods that may not allow them full reign on their creativity. As Chateaubriand once wrote “The original writer is not one who imitates, but one whom nobody can imitate.” It is hard for a student to stand out as an individual when he or she is essentially set to writing the same paper as their fellow. To often the angles at which a writer can take an assigned topic are limited. In the end it all comes down to how much the educational system is willing to risk in developing writers in order to maintain their “system”. No doubt my children’s composition education, just like Ian Frazier’s and my own, will be structured around the “standard” essay. But one has to wonder if that is really the wisest approach.
