I sat there thinking to myself, "Why am I in this class? Why would someone with an English degree need to take a class with an optional writing practicum when I already know how to write?" Why indeed?

Several weeks into the semester and it's abundantly clear why I need this class. As much as it pains me to admit, I don't really know how to write a good, solid philosophy paper, a paper with premises that support a conclusion. It doesn't sound hard, but take a look at some and make a feeble attempt at it, and you're likely to come away shaking your head in frustration as to how you're supposed to get from the argument to the conclusion without meandering about for paragraph after paragraph. This is nothing like writing about the significance of the black veil in Hawthorne; this takes a certain sort of finesse and a rigorous mind that grasps the fact that your case will most likely fall apart with the slightest bit of criticism, and that fact alone isn't such a bad thing when philosophy is concerned. You can't charm your away with dense thoughts and even denser prose. There has to be something there that you can extract and say, "Here's what I believe and here's how I can prove it."

So, on the first day when the instructor assigned a one-page paper based on the argument of whether or not the class should be graded on a curve, I was blindsided with the reality that this is a lot harder than it seems it should be. One page? How can you accomplish anything in one page? First off, you can try to fall back on the old five paragraph essay format from grade school. Do you remember that? It's one of those relics of old that a lot of people seem to feel is overrated and too constraining. Why, I don't know. It's also apparently something that no one teaches in school any longer. How do I know this? Well, part of our class is devoted to writing, and we've had the opportunity to harshly criticize the writings of our classmates in the other section. All I know from this is that if you want to boost your ego a bit, try reading some undergraduate writing. You'll feel like Melville compared to some of these malcontents.

It's not all for naught, though. You can extract some nuggets from the filler, and believe me there's a lot of filler for a one-page assignment. Most of it's disorganized, poorly reasoned, and apparently without any real regard for even the most basic forms of organization (breaking points up into separate paragraphs isn't too popular amongst the kids these days). Even I am not immune to some hasty mistakes. I didn't even write it on the actual topic. I argued against curves in general and not specifically for this class.

One other thing I've learned so far is that "pious" isn't a very flexible adjective.