Wednesday, February 4, 2004

Response to "THE ESSAY" and our ASSIGNMENT!!!

in payne's essay on "the essay" she claims the we have actually NEVER written an essay before. or, at least, that the "essays" we have written, probably are not what she/intellectuals actually title "essays." this is hard for me to digest, considering that i HAVE written around 100 essays (more?) in my life... when ayne mentions that, "Neither is the autobiographical incident that you "write up" for your English class likely to be an essay, no matter how truthful or clever; nor the painstaking, step-by-step "How to..." paper, no matter how clear and precise; nor the description of a particular scene, no matter how accurate the details or how lyrical the language." i am remeinded of exactly what i thought when Mr. Lovas descirbed what would be the VERY first essay i ever wrote for him in eng 1a. i was excited by the prosppect of getting credit for an "essay" which I KNEW was really a creative, autobiographical story. i feel that payne is correct in this assertion, however, i lose faith in her arguement when she begins to delve into claiming that references, and information in my own words is not an essay either. so i am inevitably led to question exactly as payne does, "What, then, is an essay?" and then i see HER response "An essay is the written expression of its author's opinion." this lead me to think that the conclusions i draw at the end of all thse autobiographical works, the conclusions that end all the regurgitated references i have used in previous essays .... THE CONCLUSION is the only true essay i write/ have written. given this fact, it seems nearly impossible to truly write an essay, unlss the reader is someone as equally informed as the writer. and if the reader IS as equally informed as the author, then i must ask payne, WHAT IS THE POINT OF WRITING THAT ESSAY? this is an unnerving feeling/thought to have as i begin to think of my third ESSAY for english 1b. hmm... maybe THIS is the only form length essay i have written! Posted by Beth Williams on 2/4/04; 2:27:14 PM from the dept. Discuss