Why Essays Suck: An Essay

Essays suck. To be more specific, HSC English essays under the current system suck, as they are not in all cases a measure of the candidate’s ability. To make matters worse, they simply aren’t taught – well or properly. Their suckiness is embedded in, and reinforced by the syllabus itself. HSC essays suck because of the way they’re taught, they suck because of the obvious limitations of the essay medium and they suck because I suck at doing them. Goddamn it: essays suck.

According to the both the Standard and Advanced syllabi, students need to be assessed for their Listening ability, Speaking ability and Viewing ability: each at 15% of total marks, while our Reading ability is assessed for 25% and Writing for 30%. In real terms, however, that’s essays for 85% of the mark, and a speech for 15%. Right, so since essays and writing in general are worth 85% of the marks, then surely some time would be put aside in the syllabus for the teachers to teach us these crucial skills? Uh, no.

The syllabus says that 45 hours are to be spent on the Area of study and 75 are spent on modules. But time spent learning essay writing and other communications – supposedly the point of doing English as a subject – is not mentioned in the syllabus at all, which raises the question: what are we supposed to learn in English?

If it is how to communicate effectively, then why do we spend lesson upon lesson learning about the definitions and presentations of themes? If we are supposed to learn the definitions and presentations of certain themes then why do we do these obscure, thematically barren texts (*cough* Strictly Ballroom *cough*) – assuming that theme studies is a relevant life skill at all?!

It is essays that we are marked on; it is essay-writing that is the most useful product of doing English. It is essay writing, however – out of all the syllabus goals – that is given the least time in class, forcing students to go to tutors to see if they are writing effectively. Teachers who do try to teach essay writing, style, form and structure need to sneak it in the edges; so they can spend the proper amount of their time wasting our time on boring, irrelevant, useless, unnecessary crap!

And when the essays do get made and marked, they are at least partially – if unconsciously – marked on length. This affects me personally more than any one else, but bear with me. An average essay comes out to about 800-900 words, or 4-6 pages in normal handwriting. I, on the other hand, do not have normal handwriting. A normal essay for me – with the same time limits and the same preparation, practice and content – comes out to the same number of words in half the space. A teacher, seeing that my essay is half the space of anyone else’s, accordingly allots half the marks. Some of you may say “Or mayby ur just badd? Ever thunk of that?” or “You’re just shifting the blame for your poor marks onto an aspect of yourself beyond your control and thus beyond your responsibility, possibly as a part of your deep-seated reflex to absolve yourself of guilt in any situation you find yourself in” – which may be true if I got comments on my essays explaining my poor marks as anything other than “not enough detail” or “needs to be longer”. Or if I didn’t speak to teachers who straight out said “any essay shorter than 5 pages simply wasn’t long enough to get the marks.” Note that that is ‘pages’ not ‘content, analysis or style’ that he’s marking there.

Typed essays and computer exams would fix the problem quite well, assuming that every teenager in Australia had, I dunno, their own laptop or something. Legibility would be near 100%, plus short response answers could feasibly be marked by computer, saving costs for marking. Essays would be edited on the fly, meaning that the overall essay quality would be higher, and thus a more accurate measure of ability. And if students learn to type as fast as they can, to write more in exams – then what’s the problem? Australia gets a workforce that can type faster and more accurately than any competing nation! Cheating is a concern, but that can be fixed somehow – it would look mighty suspicious if someone stops typing two minutes into the exam, then somehow delivers a perfectly sculpted essay, for instance. This is a viable alternative that fixes clear problems with the system, yet is not being pursued. For a reason. That exists.

Let us assume – for a second – that the aim of the English syllabus for year 11 and twelve is: "to enable students to understand, use, enjoy and value the English language in its various textual forms and to become thoughtful, imaginative and effective communicators in a diverse and changing society."

(You can tell from the vapid, repetitive, dry and verbose style that this is taken, borrowed, stolen, re-purposed, copied, derived, molested, quoted, extracted and synthesized from the Board of Studies website.)

Basically, the aim is for us to use the English language and communicate effectively in it. SO WHY AREN’T WE TAUGHT HOW TO COMMUNICATE IN ENGLISH FOR MORE THAN A FEW LESSONS BETWEEN STUDYING TEXTS? The HSC syllabus doesn’t provide for time allocation for teachers to meet the stated aims of the HSC syllabus.

The English syllabus – for both Standard and Advanced – is broken. It is self defeating. It does not fulfill its own stated aims, of making students enjoy and value English. It does not provide for all the students studying it. It does not give adequate time for students to learn the essentials of writing, because it is too busy giving us theme analysis skills. The English Syllabus – properly taught and adhered to – can only prepare students for one thing: becoming an English teacher.

This whole thing saddens me because I enjoy writing, I enjoy reading and I enjoy English. But there must be a distinction between the English that actually gives life skills in writing and communication necessary in many careers and the English that gives life skills in recognizing the use of metaphor to enhance the composer’s interpretation of the theme of “Doorknobs in Modern Culture”.

I propose that Standard English and Advanced English become not just varied in difficulty, but essentially the same subject – but radically different subjects. Standard would be rolled into Fundamentals and focus on how to communicate in many different mediums – speeches as much as essays. It would give its students enough ability and practice in writing to pursue almost any non-literary career. Advanced would actually be advanced: it would teach themes and concepts and techniques and all the skills necessary to read high literature, criticize and even write novels or pursue journalism. This system change would mean that people who hate English as a subject get English in its purest form and learn skills that they will actually need; a Standard English that stands as an opposite to General Maths that teaches useful essentials, rather than as an “Advanced English Lite”. And an Advanced English that stands as opposite to 2 Unit Maths: removed from everyday usage and requiring a lot of work, but gives those who are interested the chance to write fiction and non-fiction with skill and ease.

So yeah.