Rock the Casbah
Here I am, trying to sneak in a quick post before Dr. Rogers posts a new prompt ... On your mark, get set ...
I don't remember actually being taught to write essays. I remember in high school reading a bunch of poems and short stories and having to answer standard questions from the textbook like "Explain why so much depends on the red wheelbarrow" (when I'm actually wondering why the wheelbarrow got left in the rain in the first place, and who the heck let the poor little white chickens out?). But essays? I must have missed the class where they explained the whole five paragraph thing.
So I spent my first few semesters as a freshman English major filling my three to five page papers with what I thought was the right content, hoping no one would call my bluff. I kept getting "A"s, but all the while I was suffering from Dr. Roger's so-called impostor syndrome (except I always kind of thought of it as the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome -- you know, when you're parading around, thinking you're writing some pretty nice stuff and pretty soon someone points at you and yells, "She's only wearing her underwear!") I was sure I was going to come up against a professor who would expose me for the idiot I was, kind of like when I was five and my brother discovered that I thought Ronald Reagan and Robert Redford were the same guy, or when I was twenty-five and my husband caught me singing "Rock the Catbox! Rock the Catbox!" along with that song by The Clash. (Apparently, it's "Rock the Casbah.") (And, btw, Robert Redford is an actor. Ronald Reagan was an actor and a president. Who knew?)
I think the turning point came when I learned about this funny little thing called "Literary Criticism" in a fascinating class taught by Dr. Shigley. I learned about different ways to look at literature and different ways to write about it. Most importantly, I read a lot of essays. I realized, "Ahhhh...so this is what I should have been writing for the last two years." Writing papers was still a struggle, and I still was (am) terrified of being exposed for an idiot (Just so you know, Georgia is a state and a country. Huh.) But I guess I got the basics down.
I suppose the moral of this story is, don't spend two years of your college education trying to invent the university when it's already been invented for you. You just have to know the right place to look (ask Dr. Shigley--she'll hook you up). And remember kids: If you want to write good essays, read good essays. If you want to write about sparkling vampires, read Meyer.
And in the meantime, rock the catbox.
I don't remember actually being taught to write essays. I remember in high school reading a bunch of poems and short stories and having to answer standard questions from the textbook like "Explain why so much depends on the red wheelbarrow" (when I'm actually wondering why the wheelbarrow got left in the rain in the first place, and who the heck let the poor little white chickens out?). But essays? I must have missed the class where they explained the whole five paragraph thing.
So I spent my first few semesters as a freshman English major filling my three to five page papers with what I thought was the right content, hoping no one would call my bluff. I kept getting "A"s, but all the while I was suffering from Dr. Roger's so-called impostor syndrome (except I always kind of thought of it as the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome -- you know, when you're parading around, thinking you're writing some pretty nice stuff and pretty soon someone points at you and yells, "She's only wearing her underwear!") I was sure I was going to come up against a professor who would expose me for the idiot I was, kind of like when I was five and my brother discovered that I thought Ronald Reagan and Robert Redford were the same guy, or when I was twenty-five and my husband caught me singing "Rock the Catbox! Rock the Catbox!" along with that song by The Clash. (Apparently, it's "Rock the Casbah.") (And, btw, Robert Redford is an actor. Ronald Reagan was an actor and a president. Who knew?)
I think the turning point came when I learned about this funny little thing called "Literary Criticism" in a fascinating class taught by Dr. Shigley. I learned about different ways to look at literature and different ways to write about it. Most importantly, I read a lot of essays. I realized, "Ahhhh...so this is what I should have been writing for the last two years." Writing papers was still a struggle, and I still was (am) terrified of being exposed for an idiot (Just so you know, Georgia is a state and a country. Huh.) But I guess I got the basics down.
I suppose the moral of this story is, don't spend two years of your college education trying to invent the university when it's already been invented for you. You just have to know the right place to look (ask Dr. Shigley--she'll hook you up). And remember kids: If you want to write good essays, read good essays. If you want to write about sparkling vampires, read Meyer.
And in the meantime, rock the catbox.
posted by Em at 7:54 PM
1 Comments:
Rock on!!! I had to laugh because I'm always making fun of my husband for singing wrong lyrics. My favorite was his rousing rendition of Brooks & Dunn's "My Maria"--which he thought was "My Burrito." Priceless. I still sing it that way...it's more meaningful somehow.
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