Here, once again, is the essay that is under consideration by you, as readers for a highly selective university:
In that most nihilistic of Shakespeare’s plays Troilus and Cressida, Pandarus opens the door for what we would call illicit sex that then leads to as bleak an ending as anything the bard wrote: the loss of love and the death of Hector (and the end of Troy thereafter). Today, at this moment (and this too, every second of every day) Romney and Obama and Paul all pander with promises that they know are not true. And my grandfather called that black and white animal at the zoo a “pander” too.
Words are all slippery when wet, they get slapped on a deck, then get gutted, and soon cooked up fresh from the sea, that wine dark sea, that goes back again as far as Homer and Pandarus.
Some words we throw back, just junk, the way an old worn boot ruins our hooks and tangles our lines. But I think I have fought with a whopper, though nothing as big and as menacing as the dark shark from Jaws or a Shakespearean pimp.
So pick up your iPhone and click a photo with me smiling and holding it up. I caught the thing and, perhaps in the struggle, I hope I caught you too. But I promise I will never pander in class for a grade or in an activity for a leadership position. I will take my words by the gills and hold them up, proud to show off to the world what I have wrought from a single word-- the soft white meat just underneath a glistening well-turned thought.
First, a bit of data: Over 500
people looked at the webpage. They came from a variety of sources. The top link
came from my Facebook page. After that a large number came from my blog or consulting
pages. There were also a significant number who came from college confidential where I posted a link, and quora.com.
While the number was quite high
given how recently I began this blog, I was surprised at how few people chose
to send any remarks concerning the essay. In other words, a large number of people
looked and presumably read the essay, but few took the time to write anything
about it.
I think people are very busy and
wanted to see the essay but did not yet feel comfortable sharing a view with someone
they do not know and possibly do not trust. I hope my continued presence on the
web and my efforts to provide free and useful information will change this
perception if it in fact currently exists.
What is of most interest to
people is of course what the respondents did say. Here is where I was not at
all surprised to see a wide range of reactions. With the permission of the
authors I will cut and paste just of few.
1.
This is a layered, subtle, and profound essay.
A fundamental point of it is that education is not about learning
facts, but rather about the process of finding and crafting for
oneself. The writer shows this through the progress of the essay.
The first paragraph offers a basic definitions of the word pander, as
well as attempts to appear educated and humorous. The essay looks
like it will be unimpressive.
The second paragraph shows growth: it introduces the metaphor of
looking for words as fishing. The "wet" word is the one we just
thought of, it is fresh from the sea. Still, the writer is not as
his/her most mature: there is still the effort to appear educated
through the use of a Homeric allusion and deep-seeming reference to
the ancient past.
The third paragraph develops the metaphor but is still in the realm of
seeming educated through the use of literary allusions. The busy
admissions officer's patience must be wearing thin.
The fourth paragraph makes it seem as though all is lost: how can the
penultimate sentence of an essay be: I will never pander...?
I never imagined that a strong essay could actually have only one
well-written sentence. But what a sentence! That one, last sentence
revises one's opinion of everything that went before: One is shocked
by the depth of thought demonstrated.
First, that one sentence reveals that education consists not of a
jumble of facts, or even of the ability to come up with a good
metaphor, but rather in the ability to craft and show something
complete and excellent on one's own, to be able to "take my words by
the gills and hold them up, proud to show off to the world". Being
itself a "glistening, well-turned thought", that one sentence both
shows and tells what excellence in writing, and in education, consists
of.
Yet there is more. Despite the prompt, pander is undoubtedly not the
writer's favorite word. The writer said, seemingly unimpressively,
that he/she will never pander...and then showed that he/she would
never pander by not even answering the question posed! The writer
thereby shows what he/she offers to a college: someone who will not
blindly respond to, repackage what the professor may say, but will
make it the writer's own, make something excellent, and will "take
[it] by the gills, proud to show off to the whole world."
I wonder if the passage Some words we throw back, just junk reveals
the writer's thinking about this prompt? Which was shown by the fact
of not answering it, but "throwing it back"? In the passage But I
think I have fought with a whopper is the writer in part referring to
whopper as meaning an extravagant lie?
Does the writer think that harried, overworked admissions officers
will be sufficiently attentive to see excellence from one sentence in
an essay, and the last one at that? It might seem like a great act of
courage, and/or of respect for admissions officers, to base a college
essay on that hope. The writer must have confidence in these
admissions officers? Or does the writer simply not care?
I think that this last question shows a further layer in the essay:
the author cares a great deal, but cares about integrity even more.
The writer told us that he/she will not pander. The essay as a whole
shows that. Even at the risk of being misunderstood or grossly
underestimated at perhaps the most important time in a student's life,
the writer shows that he/she will not pander to admissions officers by
diluting his/her thought to make it more accessible to them.
*****
Thank you very much for making this fine essay available. I had a lot
of fun with it! And: I am grateful to be able to offer a repayment of
sorts for your article, The Art of Writing the College Essay. Via
www.collegeconfidential.com, I have referred scores of students to
that article.
A fundamental point of it is that education is not about learning
facts, but rather about the process of finding and crafting for
oneself. The writer shows this through the progress of the essay.
The first paragraph offers a basic definitions of the word pander, as
well as attempts to appear educated and humorous. The essay looks
like it will be unimpressive.
The second paragraph shows growth: it introduces the metaphor of
looking for words as fishing. The "wet" word is the one we just
thought of, it is fresh from the sea. Still, the writer is not as
his/her most mature: there is still the effort to appear educated
through the use of a Homeric allusion and deep-seeming reference to
the ancient past.
The third paragraph develops the metaphor but is still in the realm of
seeming educated through the use of literary allusions. The busy
admissions officer's patience must be wearing thin.
The fourth paragraph makes it seem as though all is lost: how can the
penultimate sentence of an essay be: I will never pander...?
I never imagined that a strong essay could actually have only one
well-written sentence. But what a sentence! That one, last sentence
revises one's opinion of everything that went before: One is shocked
by the depth of thought demonstrated.
First, that one sentence reveals that education consists not of a
jumble of facts, or even of the ability to come up with a good
metaphor, but rather in the ability to craft and show something
complete and excellent on one's own, to be able to "take my words by
the gills and hold them up, proud to show off to the world". Being
itself a "glistening, well-turned thought", that one sentence both
shows and tells what excellence in writing, and in education, consists
of.
Yet there is more. Despite the prompt, pander is undoubtedly not the
writer's favorite word. The writer said, seemingly unimpressively,
that he/she will never pander...and then showed that he/she would
never pander by not even answering the question posed! The writer
thereby shows what he/she offers to a college: someone who will not
blindly respond to, repackage what the professor may say, but will
make it the writer's own, make something excellent, and will "take
[it] by the gills, proud to show off to the whole world."
I wonder if the passage Some words we throw back, just junk reveals
the writer's thinking about this prompt? Which was shown by the fact
of not answering it, but "throwing it back"? In the passage But I
think I have fought with a whopper is the writer in part referring to
whopper as meaning an extravagant lie?
Does the writer think that harried, overworked admissions officers
will be sufficiently attentive to see excellence from one sentence in
an essay, and the last one at that? It might seem like a great act of
courage, and/or of respect for admissions officers, to base a college
essay on that hope. The writer must have confidence in these
admissions officers? Or does the writer simply not care?
I think that this last question shows a further layer in the essay:
the author cares a great deal, but cares about integrity even more.
The writer told us that he/she will not pander. The essay as a whole
shows that. Even at the risk of being misunderstood or grossly
underestimated at perhaps the most important time in a student's life,
the writer shows that he/she will not pander to admissions officers by
diluting his/her thought to make it more accessible to them.
*****
Thank you very much for making this fine essay available. I had a lot
of fun with it! And: I am grateful to be able to offer a repayment of
sorts for your article, The Art of Writing the College Essay. Via
www.collegeconfidential.com, I have referred scores of students to
that article.
2.
The
first thing that I notice about this essay is that it is not a
fast read. The reader has to mull over the text to make sense of it,
which may not be beneficial when admission officers only have a couple
minutes for each essay. I'm not saying that the writer should not be
poetic, which he is and I thoroughly enjoy, but it should impede the
comprehension of his prose. The title doesn't completely explain
itself at first. The reference to Shakespeare's play makes sense but
similarly I had to read it twice. My writing style is actually pretty
similar to his. I'm not the strongest writer, but I got a 5 on the AP
Language and Composition Test. Secondly, remember that we want to stay
positive so referencing obama and romney as panderers may not give
adcoms the best image. I like the humor with the "pander" joke, but
again, it doesn't flow super fluidly. The transitions between
paragraphs are a bit spotty and leave the reader going "huh". I like
this essay a lot and paints the student as very thoughtful but it
needs to be WAY easier to read. Perhaps he could go for a more full
circle ending with the whopper and introduce it as an anecdote in the
beginning. I didn't understand what the whopper stood for.
fast read. The reader has to mull over the text to make sense of it,
which may not be beneficial when admission officers only have a couple
minutes for each essay. I'm not saying that the writer should not be
poetic, which he is and I thoroughly enjoy, but it should impede the
comprehension of his prose. The title doesn't completely explain
itself at first. The reference to Shakespeare's play makes sense but
similarly I had to read it twice. My writing style is actually pretty
similar to his. I'm not the strongest writer, but I got a 5 on the AP
Language and Composition Test. Secondly, remember that we want to stay
positive so referencing obama and romney as panderers may not give
adcoms the best image. I like the humor with the "pander" joke, but
again, it doesn't flow super fluidly. The transitions between
paragraphs are a bit spotty and leave the reader going "huh". I like
this essay a lot and paints the student as very thoughtful but it
needs to be WAY easier to read. Perhaps he could go for a more full
circle ending with the whopper and introduce it as an anecdote in the
beginning. I didn't understand what the whopper stood for.
3.
In response to the essay that you
have on your blog, it does in my
opinion sound in some ways pretentious but then is also very
imaginative as well. The representation of the word as a fish, and the
imagery of the fish being ‘slapped’ and ‘gutted’ is very much similar
to the way in which the meaning of a word is formed and explored, and
even though the imagery may seem strange, it does present the point.
The dull and usual words are also represented here as the junk that
you throw back into the sea, and the comparison of these words to old
boots that ruin our hook is very vivid and imaginative. Also, the
image of the sea, that goes back again as far as Homer and Pandarus
shows the way in which words have been developed both at present and
past as well, and in my opinion the sea in this case was a very
imaginative and original way to represent that.
However, there are some particular points during the essay that in my
opinion give it a pretentious attitude. The first is the fact that the
writer has fought a ‘whopper’ representing how hard the word is to get
around. The word ‘pander’ is complicated with many different meanings
and forms and the writer does cover all of these, but the actual
statement of it being a whopper in my opinion does present a
pretentious attitude. The statements which tells us to take a picture
of the writer holding the ‘whopper’ gives an image of achievement and
pride but the later words where the writer will ‘show off to the
world’ turns the first statement into a seemingly pretentious one as
well.
opinion sound in some ways pretentious but then is also very
imaginative as well. The representation of the word as a fish, and the
imagery of the fish being ‘slapped’ and ‘gutted’ is very much similar
to the way in which the meaning of a word is formed and explored, and
even though the imagery may seem strange, it does present the point.
The dull and usual words are also represented here as the junk that
you throw back into the sea, and the comparison of these words to old
boots that ruin our hook is very vivid and imaginative. Also, the
image of the sea, that goes back again as far as Homer and Pandarus
shows the way in which words have been developed both at present and
past as well, and in my opinion the sea in this case was a very
imaginative and original way to represent that.
However, there are some particular points during the essay that in my
opinion give it a pretentious attitude. The first is the fact that the
writer has fought a ‘whopper’ representing how hard the word is to get
around. The word ‘pander’ is complicated with many different meanings
and forms and the writer does cover all of these, but the actual
statement of it being a whopper in my opinion does present a
pretentious attitude. The statements which tells us to take a picture
of the writer holding the ‘whopper’ gives an image of achievement and
pride but the later words where the writer will ‘show off to the
world’ turns the first statement into a seemingly pretentious one as
well.
4.
Initially, I doubted whether the
writer had “caught” the word as he/she
claimed. The writer merely presented the word in various discontinuous
contexts, then went on to demonstrate through imagery how words are
elusive. To be nitpicky, I thought there wasn’t a clear connection
between the 1st paragraph and the rest of the essay. I also thought
the continuation of the fisherman imagery in the 3rd paragraph was
awkward (though it worked well in the 2nd paragraph). The author’s
sudden declaration of triumph in the last paragraph took me by
surprise.
I am being nitpicky here though. By the end of the refreshing and
lyrical essay (I appreciated the writers’ nuanced word choices) I
wanted to know the writer personally. Here is a person who does not
take something at face value, but rather struggles to process
something thrown at him/her into a digestible idea. The author sounds
like someone who can contextualize, read between the lines, and see a
wider picture. I also admire the writing style. The slippery fish
imagery elucidated the difficulty of grasping a situation, of
breathing meaning into words. The cooked white flesh of the fish
reminded me that words are not empty, especially if the writer will
not pander in class for grades or in activities for hand-out
leadership prizes. It was a concise essay that seemed true and shed
light on his/her character as well as the thoughtful, positive outlook
on life. I was really happy that the writer did not stop at merely
musing over the word, but rather went on to take the word by its gills
and proclaimed a small victory.
claimed. The writer merely presented the word in various discontinuous
contexts, then went on to demonstrate through imagery how words are
elusive. To be nitpicky, I thought there wasn’t a clear connection
between the 1st paragraph and the rest of the essay. I also thought
the continuation of the fisherman imagery in the 3rd paragraph was
awkward (though it worked well in the 2nd paragraph). The author’s
sudden declaration of triumph in the last paragraph took me by
surprise.
I am being nitpicky here though. By the end of the refreshing and
lyrical essay (I appreciated the writers’ nuanced word choices) I
wanted to know the writer personally. Here is a person who does not
take something at face value, but rather struggles to process
something thrown at him/her into a digestible idea. The author sounds
like someone who can contextualize, read between the lines, and see a
wider picture. I also admire the writing style. The slippery fish
imagery elucidated the difficulty of grasping a situation, of
breathing meaning into words. The cooked white flesh of the fish
reminded me that words are not empty, especially if the writer will
not pander in class for grades or in activities for hand-out
leadership prizes. It was a concise essay that seemed true and shed
light on his/her character as well as the thoughtful, positive outlook
on life. I was really happy that the writer did not stop at merely
musing over the word, but rather went on to take the word by its gills
and proclaimed a small victory.
5.
Grammatical errors aside, I think
the essay is poorly organized and poorly developed. The student briefly dips
into various thoughts/potential themes (Shakespeare--> modern-day
politics--> grandfather at zoo??), but fails to engage any of them, let
alone tie the disparate thoughts together. The extended metaphor of using
words/catching fish is probably the most laudable part of the essay-- this
section contains some eloquent and evocative phrases. But even the metaphor
section lacks cohesion, and the student never qualifies the use of the metaphor
(what is this "whopper" that he/she has struggled with, how does it
connect to "pander", etc). Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the
essay is that the student seems to have a poor grasp on the word
"pander" itself...I've only encountered the word "pander"
followed by "to" in a phrase. So, I'm inclined to think that the
student has rarely, if ever, encountered the word "pander" in a
book/article/whatever. It seems that the student looked up the word in the dictionary
just to write this essay...
New Essay Test
The range of reactions to this
essay is very wide indeed. What does this say about the essay and what does it
say about the ability of “experts” to predict how readers will respond?
I will wait for a week and
respond again once people have submitted some remarks.
Hi Parke,
ReplyDeleteIn your article “Writing the Essay: Sound Advice from an Expert,” you describe essays as bad, good, or risky. A bad essay tells; a good essay shows; a risky essay shows and creates controversy. The conflicting reactions to the pander-fish essay suggest that it falls within the risky essay category. No one (“expert” or otherwise) can predict a reader’s response to a risky essay; if she could, the essay would not be risky.
Fortunately, to help a student improve an essay, the “expert” does not need to predict the reader’s response. Instead, she needs to accomplish two simple goals. First, she needs to make sure the writer shows instead of tells. “Show, don’t tell” is as close as we will get to a universal principle of good writing. Second, she needs to make sure the writer understands any risks the essay is taking. The “expert” should explain (not discourage!) risks so that the writer can make an informed decision about whether to strive for a good essay or a risky essay.
Jonathan M. Perkins