throughout high school i was taught a multitude of formulae in regards to essay writing, the most common of them being good old ‘teel’ (which i assume was the general acronym that others learnt as well). i vividly recall in year 8 whilst planning essay writing about holes, my teacher ms smith taught us that teel was like a fish skeleton. the head was the introduction, you get a feel for what’s going to go down further on. the each different bone would be a topic sentence that they were separate entities that connected onto the spine, or follow through idea, of the ‘fish’, and lastly, that the tail was the conclusion, summarising the discussions and keeping it all together.

i thought this was a pretty solid method of thinking until my year 12 teacher mrs fogarty (i’m now unsure if her name was actually mrs paul graham) went and threw my fish skeleton to the ground and shattered those bones to pieces. she believed that any true essay that had any depth and substance wouldn’t follow a stupid acronym. a lot of what she taught me throughout the year was so reflective of the reading, how it’s a discussion and a way of exploring different ideas and points and the end goal isn’t to come back to prove a point, but to put forth ideas and explanations as to why something may be so.
i’ll be the first to admit that i’m no fan of essay writing; i find it mightily tedious. but it was a nice little moment to read graham and how he discusses more so than for the readers, that there’s benefits in essay writing for the actual person putting the pen to paper. the power that we possess in our own hands and minds and that connection to put these ideas forth is so pivotal to have, the mere ability to express words is enough to gain insight into clarified thoughts and ideas to put into an essay.  if the end product isn’t a conclusive answer to the main idea you initially put forth, you have not lost, you’ve instead taken a different path and broadened a fountain of knowledge.