The Age of the Essay
…due to a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing has gotten mixed together with the study of literature. And so all over the country students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in Dickens.
I’d never really thought about it, but this was almost entirely true of my education, with the exception of an essay or two done in Theory of Knowledge class for the IB. Actually, as I remember it, the Extended Essay for IB could be done about any topic you liked. But mine was about literature. Sort of.
