An Essay on Essaying

An essay is undoubtedly born out of the frustration of a blank page, or it seems, more fittingly, stuck in the creative birth canal. There is a weight to a blank page. A mental gravity.

A simple definition for the essay may include 1.) a short piece of writing on a particular subject, or 2.) an attempt or effort. In grade school, the word essay may evoke test memories: kids looking despondently at white stapled paper with two sharpened number two pencils, the teacher licking a finger, counting each kid in a row, droning, “at the end of the test please write a five paragraph essay about your understanding of the Revolutionary War. You will 30 minutes to do this.”

A little later, even the most esteemed professor will slap at the creative inklings towards “I” or the inclusion of oneself in the essay. You may be lucky to sneak in other pronouns such as “we.” The teacher will say, “The essay is not about you, but should instead focus on the subject matter. “I want you to write an essay about community agriculture.” or “I want you to draw a correlation between Emmit Till and Travon Martin.” Or “review what you know about this critical piece of literature.” And, you sit at a blank page, trying to perform mental telepathy. Letters shake and rattle on the little table in your mind but they don’t come together to form sentences. You may walk in the garden, but you’re not actually there. The blank page in the end, reflects nothing of you. No verb, no noun, no adjective, no clause, suggests that you’ve been anywhere on the page.

When I told a professor I wanted to do a contract about essay writing, he looked perplexed. He had a hard time suppressing his lack of enthusiasm , or maybe he was unable to muster up that cold hard and stoic support system that teachers should learn to be good at; the practice of supporting the students in all of their experiments, even if their experiments are wily and the teacher knows better. He said, “surely there is some context you’re searching for?” and I morosely recited my proposal: “I want to learn about the mechanics of essay writing.” Underneath the shallow vanities of our correspondence, it was getting harder and harder to suppress my frustrations and real desires. “I’m tired of writing shit,” I should have said. But I continued with a formal proposal, and he eventually caught wind of my idea, or so he thought. Something about two schools of thought: the creative one, and another one that seemed eerily similar to what we had been learning about Paulo Friere and his banking model of education and us students being receptacles and such. He revealed to me a pedagogical trade secret, like it was some dirty laundry about some fellow employee. “You know the essay is just a great way to prove that students have read the material.” He may have used the term academic essay. Either way. Note here, I have no qualms with this revelation. Why not? –given the proclivity towards stretching academic rules to a point of absurdity, rules that otherwise bring some organization and balance to the risky exploratory nature of the liberal arts education, -why not have the academic essay?

But.