Life would’ve been better learning the gentle art of personal essay writing.
There was nothing I hated more than school essay assignments. They sucked life from the soul, spitting out the shattered remnants as dead lifeless words on a page.
Mrs McAllister comes to mind when I think about school essays. She was one of my high school teachers. She taught sociology. Didn’t really matter if you met her on the first day of the year or the last day of the year, Mrs McAllister was always the same. She had a voice to match.
I can remember repeatedly losing the thread of her lessons. I listened. Very intently. It wasn’t the words I was hearing as much as I was listening for her voice to flicker, just the tiniest bit from the monotone. Just a note or two, up or down the scale of tone would have been monumental.
Never in my life had I met someone who’s voice never wavered. I could never tell if she was excited, bored, angry, happy, sad or joyous. I knew she lived, there was sound coming from her. I just could never envision her as having life.
I’d had teachers who were bored stiff and sounded it when they taught. Their voices would move up and down. There was a cadence to their speech even within their boredom. Not Mrs McAllister’s voice. It always sounded like a single note being played over, and over.
I was taught to write essays in a similar manner. The format was never to vary. The words could but don’t get too carried away. Essays were not creative writing. Creative writing was fiction. Non-fiction writing was to just tell facts, express your opinions if you must. No emotion allowed.
Writing was to be cold, methodical, lifeless. Convey the message, don’t reveal your humanity, don’t put expression to thoughts. Just form the words and let them fall from your pen like Mrs McAllister’s voice fell from her lips — one .. word… at … a … time … with … not … a … hint … of … feeling.
Don’t forget the citations.
Did you love school essays as much as I did? Do you write essays now?
Shadowspub is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms.
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My friend (almost since birth) and I were discussing HS teachers recently. The ONE that we focused on was one we both hated in HS. Mrs. Heimbigner taught us the Queen's language. She took no prisoners. March or die.
50 years later, we both admire the teaching we got from her. My friend has been a HS teacher off and on (supporting herself while getting two PHDs) and she says having done so gave her a serious appreciation of Mrs. H.
Her essay assignments were much more about the function of the language than what you wrote about. Passion and interest were allowed if not encouraged so long as you NEVER dangled a participle.
most of my English teachers were pretty non-inspiring and pretty rigid on what they would allow in essays. I considered them a torture tool
why I flunked Junior year in High School. I didn't write my essay.
still hate them to this day.
hmm are you sure you do? You do at times write them on here. You just don't realize you're doing so because that is what essays should have been.
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