Since The Beginning Of Time, Mankind Has Discussed What It Did On Summer Vacation

Yesterday I ran across this great article from The Onion, and I had to share. I’m sure most of us remember writing such things in school. I don’t know if any of us would admit (or remember) writing things as bad as this, but it makes me remember the way we were taught to use a thesis statement and write an explicit introduction and conclusion.

The article reminds me of Paul Graham’s The Age of the Essay. The essay as a whole is really powerful, however its starts off with a criticism of the ways we are taught to write in high school.

Regardless of your thoughts on his essay, the onion article does a pretty good job of reminding us that those lessons we learned in school were rules set to teach us the principles of writing – that our thoughts should be organized, our writing should say something, our arguments should make sense, etc.

Enjoy the article. It made me smile.