Graham Response

Brandon Walker

February 19, 2018

Graham Response

This article starts off by pointing out that there is something a bit off about how we write and are presented with essays in modern education. It is stated that the act of teaching how to write has been mixed up with the pedagogy of understanding and analyzing literature from a personal viewpoint. This issue originated when the backbone of scholar’s studies began to be the study of ancient texts. This slowly started the study of modern literature which is how English classes actually began. Before this time, writing was seen more as a casualty. This birth of English literature studying eventually spread to lower grade schooling because high schools imitate colleges and universities in order to prepare their students for what’s to come.

The article then proceeds to talk about form of essays and how we piece them together in modern English classes versus the original intent of what essays were supposed to be. Essays did not come from thesis statements and argumentative body paragraphs. Essays were not originally persuasive works. The original purpose of an essay was something you write in order to try to expand your knowledge on a certain topic or try to figure something out. The article explains essays as “thinking out loud”. Today we write essays to make a statement but the original essays were written for the writer themselves.