On Writing Essays

... the sun rises at our house ...

I love writing essays.

I can’t help myself.

There is a certain amount of pleasure in taking a topic, and then having a one-on-one discussion with the instructor, trying to get into or around some problem or to pick out the threads that bind a problem that seems unsolvable.

I am thinking about this love of writing in the case of living here with Duncan who is in his first year at Camosun College. He is registered in a course called History through Film, which is a little different than what I was interested in about film, more what does film do with history, than what can we learn about history through film. Those are two absolutely different topics. Still we have great discussions – and lots of movie night here as he makes his way through his viewing list.

He was writing an essay and both Rebecca and I got to read his work. When the essay was done, I had the question, I wonder what Duncan learned while writing this essay. I reversed the question and asked it of myself.

I think that question is still important to me – what do I know now that I didn’t know a few days ago.

The answer to the question can be taken as embarrassing, to me – but I am trying to change it around into thinking that it is astonishing that I could miss pieces of information.

In Duncan’s essay, one was that he quoted Stokely Carmichael, as one of his primary sources. I haven’t ever read much about him, only heard him quoted. Though not often enough, for I thought his name was Stokey. So that was the first thing I learned.

I also learned how to quote a film in the Bibliography using Chicago Style, as opposed to APA. I love burrowing down into a style manual and finding out which of the variations will apply to the film or book I am quoting. My life is full of small pleasure, but still pleasures.

Arta