So what’s the deal with essays? We used to have to write them in school all the time for homework. It seemed like it was a type of writing invented exclusively for teachers to assign students for homework. That was the only way they could be viewed, at least in the North American culture of schooling. As kids and students, we were never really exposed to any essays that were really cool and interesting. Essays that would inspire us to want to write essays. Instead, we are (were) simply told to write them and this is (was) the format, and we had better get them in on time or else.
So where have the essays gone?
Now that we are out of school we never see essays anywhere in the world that we now inhabit as adults, employees, and consumers of entertainment and media. Well, I would have to say, wrong. We DO see essays, every day in fact. We see them every night on late night TV shows, we hear them on the radio, when a show host does a bit about the current state of things and how they see it. We see them in any number of newspapers that we read, or magazines as well, for that matter. Finally, we see them in blogs like this one every day, especially when we subscribe to the RSS feed or the email subscription option (yes, please choose one!)
It’s just that when we read something that we are interested in, we don’t make the connection to something that we hated doing when we were in school. But, nonetheless, here we are reading essays as a part of our everyday life without even realizing it. Although, I’m sure that there are some of you who DO realize when you are reading an essay, but I’m pretty sure you would be in the minority among all of those reading this.
So why do I bring this up? Well, I realized that I wanted to write more interesting posts that people wouldn’t find boring or ones that they would hate. So I want this to be the first essay in what I hope to make a running contribution to my blog. A running series, if you will.
So here it is. The first one. Simply being about essays in general, which I thought would be kind of fitting. Essays don’t suck, they are just presented that way in school. All they really are is someone’s opinion on something that is backed up with examples to justify their opinion. That’s a huge range of things to talk about in an essay.
So that’s the first one. Bring on the comments, make this a true conversation. That’s what I’m going for here after all.
Cheers.
todd – The Hurley Edition
http://www.toddhurley.ca
The Hurley Edition 