Definitions and approaches:

You can all look up online definitions of what an essay is. I won't trouble you with any of that. You will be writing essays, and if you have taken ENG 162 or ENG 101 or been otherwise approved by me, you should have no fear of that word 'essay.'

It's nonfiction often based on your own experiences, observations, thoughts. You all have done all that. What will make 262 different is that you will be doing one larger piece each week instead of a bunch of shorter pieces. That may mean a different writing process for you; I have no advice about that.

I do have a piece of general advice about essays. I offer you the word 'discursive.'

And now I will give you an online dictionary definition. "passing from one topic to another, usually in an unmethodical way; digressive; rambling."

And: "to wander from one topic to another; to skim over apparently unconnected."

These may sound like bad things! You, no doubt, have had English teachers, maybe even me, hassle you for rambling. But there are two kinds of rambling, one good, one bad.

The bad ramble is the blah blah blah ramble where the writer says not much, repeats himself, blathers, pads, makes little sense.

The good kind of ramble is when a writer is paying attention to his own thoughts and allows one thing to suggest another and allows those suggestions to find their way into the writing, so the reader--this is exciting!--the reader is able to enter into the writer's mind and see those connections, understand the writer and his thoughts much better than if the writer was following a strict outline.

Let's say I want to write about my hands. If you had me in ENG 101, you know that is one of the first assignments. I might describe how stubby they are and that might lead me to write about arthritis that's slowing my typing down. Now, I say to myself, should I write about how my slow typing may someday force me off the keyboard and how if I can't type, I'd have to retire. And what would my retirement be like?

And on the essay would go. I start with fingers and end with retirement and, frankly, death.

Or maybe instead of arthritis and retirement and all that, I would find myself describing my two broken fingers and how that happened--immediately now I'd be writing about horses and what they mean to me: how they excite and terrify, how and what they've taught me about themselves and about me.

So, my taste generally runs to a discursive approach. It's not a requirement for ENg 262, but it's where your teacher tends to be coming from.

But where are you coming from? I don't need a bunch of mini-me's! The world seems to get along fine with just the one maxi-me, busted arthritic fingers and all.