Post I: Discourse Surrounding the Essay

Eng 001
Kate Nootz
Post 1

“There’s nothing you can not do to it; no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is pro-scribed. You get to make up your own structure every time, a structure that arises from the materials and best contains them.”
- Annie Dillard

I chose this quote because it was a foreign idea to me. What I have learned from previously writing an essay is that it is structured papers in the same format each time and a topic that was picked for you. This is the first chance that I have had free reign on something that I write. I think that writing now will be an interesting experience instead of a chore. Annie Dillard goes on to say that while writing you should analyze and use your creative imagination and write of scenes so they are remembered and saved. These stuck out in my mind because I have never thought of writing as being a journey. In high school I was asked most often to write research papers which had very limited possibilities I thought. Adding something different, new, or exciting would be thought of as off topic and not relevant to what I was writing about. This quote has opened my mind to the possibilities of what my writing can become.
There’s nothing you can not do to it. There is nothing that I cannot change, nothing I cannot add, nothing I cannot take away. It tells me that the words I write are up to me and I get to decide what I want to talk about and share. I can mold my thoughts the way I want to. No subject matter forbidden is relevant for people writing for recreation but mainly for the purposes I will be writing for there is a subject that is chosen for you. Just because a subject is chosen for you doesn’t mean that you can’t add your own spin and thoughts to it. I’m sure that teachers would appreciate there to be some structure to your writing but so far none have said anything about the 5 paragraph method that we were always taught in the past. Now that I have learned the “correct” structure on how to write essays they let me run free and I am now beginning to learn that essay’s have unlimited possibilities.