During our discussion last class, we were supposed to define what an essay is to us and then try to analyze what we wrote. I wrote that an essay to me is a writing piece that includes an introduction, body and a conclusion. But this essay also has a job, which is to have a point to have a meaning and to do something; whether it is to persuade to inform or to be a form of expression. After our analysis of what our ideas of an essay are I got kind of confused and a little rattled. I like my essays to be formatted in the introduction, body, conclusion way. It’s how I was taught. In fact it was drilled into my head a very long time ago and enforced during high school through my favorite English teacher when we prepped for the AP English Lit. Perhaps that’s why I’m so stuck in my formatted ways, being that someone I admire greatly advocated it. He used to call our essays a sandwich, with the first bun being the introduction, the body being the chicken and salad and the bottom bun being the conclusion. I’m trying to see essays in a different light without a sandwich format but that might take some getting used to. It took everything I had to not put this blog post into a sandwich format but just let it take its natural form. Reading it over I don’t like it very much, it looks like a jumbled piece of writing. It does have a purpose though which is to inform my audience of my struggle with an essay format, but it isn’t formatted. It is just a long piece of writing. Which brings me to my other dilemma; are the pieces we read in class essays? I actually saw them as long stories but not as essays, for one they were too long and secondly the format was jumbled. I guess this new essay idea will take a little getting used to, but I definitely want to put it into play in a future essay. Peace!
