Niloofar's post

I’m sorry I missed last week’s discussion regarding assignments, I’m sure I could benefit a lot form your viewpoints in formulating my own, here. However, I thinkI would vote for “assigning essays”. And I can mainly justify my opinion by going back to my own experience: I was never asked to write an essay till very late; my first year in graduate school! I know… it is quite odd! But this is how the educational system works in Iran, at least at undergraduate level. Although I had some experiences in writing for journals or magazines before my first official essay assignment, those were hugely different in the sense that they were voluntary and optional. As I think back I see that what made essay writing an exceptional and sometimes an ecstatic experience for me was actually the very “obligation”. I very much valued this opportunity or rather this “obligation” of presenting my thought, working on it and expanding it, knowing that someone will read it thoroughly to evaluate it. If I’m obliged to write then it means that someone is obliged to read.

However, I do not mean to generalize my own feeling about essay writing. I strongly agree with Robin when he says “we all hated doing them (well, maybe not us....)”, i.e., his hint about the possible differencesbetween us and them in our attitude towards essay writing. But what I think I can say without extrapolating my opinion is this: everyone should be given this opportunity of ‘obligation’, and not once or twice but more. Being asked to sit in front of a blank paper, per se, I think, is quite potential in bringingforth an ecstatic experience and thus everyone should give it a shot.

I sound pretty traditional in the last few lines and I think I will sound even more tradition here, so I keep it short! I think a couple of quizzes are also necessary to smooth the path for essay writing- just to make sure that students know what the key concepts are and how to use them as their thinking tools. So, I should confess I’m not saying anything original here!! I’m only trying to think why the traditional '2 essays and 2 tests' model has been used for so long now and why it still make sense to me.