[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.24.0″ custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.24.0″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.24.3″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Have you heard of Malcolm Gladwell? He\u2019s written five New York Times<\/em> bestsellers. I first became aware of him with his 2001 bestseller, The Tipping Point<\/em>. A few years back, a friend was raving about a Malcolm Gladwell book he had just read and was unsuccessfully attempting to explain Gladwell\u2019s writing style. Finally, I asked, \u201cMeandering?\u201d And my friend replied, \u201cYes, that\u2019s it exactly!\u201d<\/p>\n I explained that Gladwell\u2019s books are primarily collections of essays. Yes, we can classify Gladwell\u2019s writing in a few different ways, including as popular nonfiction. However, you will never understand his writing if you don\u2019t understand what an essay is.<\/p>\n Gladwell has been a staff writer for The New Yorker<\/em> magazine since 1996. That alone should tell you that his writing will likely fall somewhere between an essay and an essay-article. What\u2019s the difference between an essay and an article?<\/p>\n Well, there was a time when people had time for reading meandering belletristic informal essays. However, in the early 1900s, people lost interest in this writing style. Popular essayist Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879-1944) responded to this loss of interest in the essay by asking readers if they wanted the news or the truth. Sadly for her, the readers responded by saying they wanted the news.<\/p>\n In short, an article is the news. An essay is more of a search for the truth.<\/p>\n Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) single-handedly invented and popularized the essay genre when he wrote his book titled Essais<\/em> (1580). His essays were largely informal attempts to say something worthwhile. In fact, in French, Essais<\/em> means attempts<\/em>. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) added his stamp on the essay genre and started a debate that exists even today over what an essay is. Bacon\u2019s book, Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political<\/em> (1597), was exploratory and reflective, much like Montaigne\u2019s, but Bacon\u2019s essays were formal and structured. Furthermore, Bacon had no essays on \u201cthumbs\u201d or \u201csmells\u201d like Montaigne.<\/p>\n Hence, the debate was born: informal essays vs. formal essays.<\/p>\n Thus far, we have explored three competing concepts that relate to the essay:<\/p>\n Here are a few more related concepts:<\/p>\n In school, students write five main types of essays. These five essay genres capture the majority of student essay writing:<\/p>\n To be clear, things like a compare-and-contrast essay are really an argument essay, expository essay, or even a narrative essay. Put simply, we compare and contrast for a reason. That reason will either be an argument, explanation, or telling what happened.<\/p>\n By the way, if you teach paragraph or multi-paragraph writing, you owe it to yourself to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. You will get twice the results in half the time. Also, be sure to check out Academic Vocabulary for Critical Thinking, Logical Arguments, and Effective Communication<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. By reading it just once, you will change the way you think and communicate forever. I guarantee it!<\/p>\n With this background on essays, you are well prepared to understand what a few handfuls of famous essayists have to say about essays.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”10px|10px|10px|10px|true|true” border_radii=”on|9px|9px|9px|9px” border_width_all=”9px” border_color_all=”#1258b2″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n What is an essay? Answering that question is critical for students, teachers, writers, and readers of all ages. If you cannot answer that question concretely and competently, you are lost when it comes to fully grasping writing and literature. If you keep reading, you will, once and for all, understand what an essay is!<\/p>\n The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything. \u2014 Preface to the Collected Essays (1960) by Aldous Huxley<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Essay? It\u2019s short but personal writing that speaks from the heart (wherever that is). \u2014 f- Words: An Essay on the Essay (1996) by Rachel Blau Duplessis<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The most accurate, as well as least satisfying, definition of the essay is: a short, or shorter prose text that is not a story. \u2014 Introduction to The Best American Essays (1992) by Susan Sontag<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n An essay is not an article, not a meditation, not a book review, not a memoir, not a disquisition, not a diatribe, not a shaggy dog story, not a monologue, not a travel narrative, not a suite of aphorisms, not an elegy, not a piece of reportage, not a\u2014 No, an essay can be any or several of the above. \u2014 Introduction to The Best American Essays (1992) by Susan Sontag<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n An essay is a search to find out what one thinks about something. Whatever twists and turns occur along its path, and however deep or moral its conclusions are, an essay will have little enduring interest unless it also exhibits a certain sparkle or stylistic flourish. \u2014 In Search of the Centaur (1992) by Phillip Lopate<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n All the great essays are in the first person. The writer need not say \u201cI.\u201d A vivid, flavorful prose style with a high aphoristic content is itself a form of first-person writing: think of the essays of Emerson, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, Elizabeth Hardwick, William Gass. \u2014 Introduction to The Best American Essays (1992) by Susan Sontag<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Some genuine essays are popularly called \u201carticles\u201d \u2013 but this is no more than an idle, though persistent, habit of speech. What\u2019s in a name? \u2014 She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body (1998) by Cynthia Ozick<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The following quote compares the essays that students learn to write to professional adult essays.<\/p>\n A few weeks ago, my 11-year-old daughter was complaining about one of her writing assignments. \u201cDad, I have to write an essay.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d I said, \u201cwhat\u2019s so bad about that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so restricting. We have to have one main point which we state in the introduction. We have to have at least three examples or subpoints; we have to have a conclusion where we state our points in a more dramatic way. Oh, and we can\u2019t use I.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These guidelines are ones I\u2019ve heard before, the ones that I had to follow in writing school essays over 20 years ago. And I remember feeling the same restriction. I remember wanting to respond with the schoolyard comeback, \u201cSays who?\u201d Who said an essay had to be this way? The answer, of course, was the writing textbooks that we used.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The essay, I wanted to tell my daughter, was something different, something better, something looser, more personal, more playful. To understand an essayist, it may be necessary to watch a child with a rattle. Watch her shake it with one hand, then with two, watch her drop it, pick it up, hit it against the floor, and put it in her mouth. This is play, but as Piaget has shown, play central to the development of intelligence. The essayist also plays, though this play is internalized looking at ideas from different directions, shaking them, pushing them until they fall over, pulling on them to look at their roots. \u2014 Critical Thinking and Writing: Reclaiming the Essay (1989) by Thomas Newkirk<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”10px|10px|10px|10px|true|true” border_radii=”on|9px|9px|9px|9px” border_width_all=”9px” border_color_all=”#1258b2″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n As one essayist points out below, \u201cWriting essays is so difficult that mediocre writers should not try it: they should limit themselves to academic work.\u201d That\u2019s important to understand because the fact is that a great deal of the writing that both students and adults do is correctly classified as an essay. If your writing is personal, reflective, descriptive, or an argument, it\u2019s probably an essay.<\/p>\n The quote\u2019s point is that it takes skill to meander with a purpose<\/em>, and most writers should not attempt to. Before you attempt to meander, you should be an expert at making points and making points clear. In reality, most teachers must instruct students on how not to meander. \u201cWhat\u2019s your point?\u201d is an important question that every writer should be able to answer.<\/p>\n The other big difference between a real essay and the things they make you write in school is that a real essay doesn\u2019t take a position and then defend it… Defending a position may be a necessary evil in a legal dispute, but it\u2019s not the best way to get at the truth… And yet this principle is built into the very structure of the things they teach you to write in high school. \u2014 The Age of the Essay (2004) by Paul Graham<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A genuine essay rarely has an educational\u2026 use; it is the movement of a free mind at play. Though it is written in prose, it is closer in kind to poetry than to any other form. Like a poem, a genuine essay is made of language and character and mood and temperament and pluck and chance… It is a stroll through someone\u2019s mazy mind. \u2014 She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body (1998) by Cynthia Ozick<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I write essays in the Mountainesque sense of the word: not in the oxymoronic \u201cargumentative essays\u201d beloved by teachers of composition, which formulize and ritualize intellectual combat with the objective of demolishing the opposition. \u2014 Essaying the Feminine (1994) by Nancy Mairs<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n An essay is not a report of research conducted in a laboratory: it is the laboratory itself, where life is put to the test in a text, where the author\u2019s imagination, creativity, experimentation, critical sensitivity are displayed. To essay is just that: to try, to probe new wordings to live with, new possibilities of being by reading. \u2014 \u201cAlfonso Reyes\u201d Wheelbarrow (1988) by Gabriel Zaid<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Essays are usually taught all wrong, they are harnessed to rhetoric and composition with a two-birds-in-one-stone approach designed to sharpen freshman students\u2019 skills at argumentation. While it is true that historically the essay is related to rhetoric, it in fact seeks to persuade more by the delights of literary style than anything else. \u2014 What Happened to the Personal Essay? (1989) by Phillip Lopate<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Writing essays is so difficult that mediocre writers should not try it: they should limit themselves to academic work. \u2014 \u201cAlfonso Reyes\u201d Wheelbarrow (1988) by Gabriel Zaid<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The essay, then, is a difficult genre because it is an adult genre. \u2014 The Limits of the Essay (1976) by Guillermo D\u00edaz-Plaja<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The formation of an essayist demands much more time than that of a poet or novelist. At eighteen, one can be Rimbaud, one cannot be an essayist. The reason for this is simple. I repeat: the essayist works in the cultural domain with the signs of culture. \u2014 Little Essayistic (1983) by Andr\u00e9 Belleau<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”10px|10px|10px|10px|true|true” border_radii=”on|9px|9px|9px|9px” border_width_all=”9px” border_color_all=”#1258b2″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Essays present a personal understanding of a topic. The academic world, in general, is conflicted about the essay. On the one hand, teachers attempt to teach students \u201cvoice\u201d as one of the Six Traits of Writing. On the other hand, many teachers forbid first-person in student writing, especially using \u201cI.\u201d<\/p>\n The fact is that many teachers don\u2019t understand writing, so they rely on arbitrary rules that don\u2019t make sense in every type of writing. Here are two quotes from people who do understand writing. This first one is from a classic book on writing nonfiction.<\/p>\n Writers are obviously at their most natural when they write in the first person. Therefore I urge people to write in the first person. (Some think it\u2019s undignified\u2014a fear that afflicts the academic world. Hence the professorial use of \u201cone\u201d.) \u2013 Even when \u201cI\u201d isn\u2019t permitted, it\u2019s still possible to convey a sense of I-ness. \u2013 On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (25th Edition, 2001) by Willaim Zinsser<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This next quote comes from Gerald Graff. Graff\u2019s ideas have been influential in developing the Common Core State Standards, especially regarding critical thinking, argumentation, and academic literacy. In fact, the standards quote him in an appendix. Graff raises an essential question: How can you separate your ideas from others\u2019 without using \u201cI?\u201d<\/p>\n Notice that the last template above uses the first-person \u201cI,\u201d as do many of the templates in this book, thus contradicting the common advice about avoiding the first person in academic and professional writing. Although you may have been told that the \u201cI\u201d word encourages self-indulgent opinions rather than well-grounded arguments, we believe that texts using \u201cI\u201d can be just as well supported\u2026 as those that don\u2019t. For us, well-supported arguments are grounded in persuasive reasons and evidence, not in their use of any particular pronouns. Furthermore, if you consistently avoid the first person in your writing, you may have trouble making the key move addressed in this chapter: differentiating your views from those of others, or even offering your own views in the first place. \u2013 They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Persuasive Writing (2007) by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Most strict rules about writing are really just opinions. Furthermore, many writing rules are genre dependent. Therefore, I believe in teaching writers to use good judgment. Good judgment involves understanding a slightly enlarged version of the rhetorical triangle. I usually include:<\/p>\n Genre is the most helpful concept because understanding genre is the key to understanding all forms of writing. It answers the questions, \u201cWhat is it? Is it what it\u2019s supposed to be?\u201d If students are required to write a \u201cformal academic essay,\u201d their writing must contain the qualities and characteristics of that genre.<\/p>\n Note: I won\u2019t go into all the concepts related to genre. In short, all \u201cschool writing\u201d should aim for Standard American English (SAE), which covers the rules of grammar. Also, there are various qualities and characteristics of informal essays that are not effective in school writing.<\/p>\n Remember, it\u2019s beneficial to understand how professional essay writers define and describe the essay genre. It will make you a better reader, writer, and teacher. So, let\u2019s continue on!<\/p>\n A personal essay is like a human voice talking, its order the mind\u2019s natural flow, instead of a systematized outline of ideas. Though more wayward and informal than an article or treatise, somewhere it contains a point which is its real center, even if the point couldn\u2019t be uttered in fewer words than the essayist has used. Essays don\u2019t usually boil down to a summary, as articles do, and the style of the writer has a nap to it, a combination of personality and energetic loose ends that stands up like the nap on a piece of wool and can\u2019t be brushed flat. \u2014 What I think, what I am. (1985) by Edward Hoagland<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n An essay really ought not to be on anything, to deal with anything, to define anything. An essay is a walk, an excursion, not a business trip… The essay is not a form, has no form; it is a game that creates its own rules\u2026 The essay is not a form, but a style above all. Its individualism distinguishes it from pure, absolute or autonomous art. The point of an essay, like its justification and its style, always lies in the author\u2019s personality and always leads back to it\u2026 Ever since Montaigne the essay has been highly individualistic, but at the same time it presupposes a society that not only tolerates individualism but enjoys it. \u2014 An Essay on the Essay (1965) by Michael Hamburger<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”10px|10px|10px|10px|true|true” border_radii=”on|9px|9px|9px|9px” border_width_all=”9px” border_color_all=”#1258b2″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Harking back to a distinction William Dean Howells (1837\u20131920) had noted as early as 1902, Gerould asked if readers wanted mere \u201carticles,\u201d or rather the leisure, the meditations, and the light touch of the genteel essay. Then, making her distinction into a dogmatic either\/or, she asked if they wanted \u201cnews\u201d or \u201ctruth.\u201d Her appeal backfired: she and the essay were branded as retrograde. \u2014 Encyclopedia of Essay (1997)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Dr. Johnson\u2019s dictionary defined an essay as \u201ca loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece.\u201d Bacon\u2019s compositions tend to drive at a single conclusion, but Johnson\u2019s \u201csally\u201d is a nice fit for Montaigne\u2019s meandering collection of thoughts, and those of his more whimsical descendants. Only a very brave or foolish exam candidate today would try to copy Montaigne instead of Bacon. The art of digression reached breathless heights in Samuel Butler\u2019s 1890 essay \u201cRamblings in Cheapside.\u201d \u2014 Montaigne\u2019s Moment (2011) by Anthony Gottlieb \u2013 NYTimes.com<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I tend to still fall back on the essay form (or lack of form) when an idea strikes me, but I am not fooled about the place of the essay in the twentieth century American letters-it stands a short distance down the line. The essayist, unlike the novelist, the poet, and the playwright, must be content in his self-imposed role of second class citizen. A writer who has his sights trained on the Nobel Prize or other earthly triumphs had best write a novel, a poem, or a play, and leave the essayist to ramble about, content with living a free life and enjoying the satisfactions of a somewhat undisciplined existence. (Dr. Johnson called the essay \u201can irregular, undigested piece\u201d; this happy practitioner has no wish to quarrel with the good doctor\u2019s characterization.) \u2014 The Foreword to Essays of E. B. White (1977) by E.B. White<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n In conclusion, there are many types of essays. Furthermore, essays may exhibit a wide range of qualities and characteristics, e.g., exploratory, reflective, personal, descriptive, meandering, opinion, one side of the argument, or both sides.<\/p>\n Here is the central question to ask when attempting to identify an essay: Is the piece of writing expressing a personal understanding? If it is, it\u2019s probably an essay. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you heard of Malcolm Gladwell? He\u2019s written five New York Times bestsellers. I first became aware of him with his 2001 bestseller, The Tipping Point. A few years back, a friend was raving about a Malcolm Gladwell book he had just read and was unsuccessfully attempting to explain Gladwell\u2019s writing style. Finally, I asked, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[457,160],"tags":[586,585,477,3,125,356],"class_list":["post-4597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genres","category-how-to-teach-essay-writing","tag-contrasting-views","tag-essay-definition","tag-genres","tag-student-writing","tag-teaching-essay-writing","tag-teaching-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4597"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4944,"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions\/4944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patternbasedwriting.com\/elementary_writing_success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Essays: What is an Essay?<\/h3>\n
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Essays: What is an Essay? Professional Adult Essays vs. Student Essays<\/h3>\n
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Essays: What is an Essay? Personality and Meandering<\/h3>\n
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Essays: What is an Essay? Final Notes<\/h3>\n
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