“The writing of an essay is like finding one’s way through a forest without being quite sure what game you are chasing, what landmark you are seeking. You sniff down one path until some heady smell tugs you in a new direction, and then off you go, dodging and circling, lured on by the songs of unfamiliar birds […]” (Sanders: 131).

 

In his short piece of writing called “The Singular First Person”, Scott Russell Sanders explains that the essay is a record of individual mind, in a world we are overwhelmed with mass data and information. But the essay “remains stubbornly concrete and particular” (Sanders: 130) to one topic, reflecting the author’s worries and feelings. The style of writing is a bit confusing (for the reader), like finding an unknown path in the woods as suggested in the quotation above. I think Sanders draws a good picture with his forest metaphor, suggesting that even the author doesn’t know how the essay will look like in the end. You come up with new ideas while writing, that may lead you away from your original idea. This actually just happened to me as I was writing my essay for this class. I was sitting on a bench in Boston Common, watching and eavesdropping on the people around me. My original idea was to listen to people phone conversations and imagine what the answer would be on the other side on the phone. At the end of the day, I made some notes about different people not using their phone, but sitting next to me on the bench, again observing the squirrels, ducks and swans in front of us.

I guess you cannot really pinpoint the one and only way to structure your essay. Every author has his or her own style of writing. In her essay “The Empathy Exams”, Leslie Jamison begins with a description of her work as a Medical actor in the hospital, followed by the case summary of one of her roles, Stephanie Phillips. Next, she explains in detail how the simulated exams take place, how she has to stick to the script and that she might write an essay about that someday, telling the reader that she is a writer on a Meta-level. Jamison continues to define the term “empathy”, and after the case summary of her second role as Leslie Jamison is presented to us. This is of course not a fictions role for the med students, but actually part of her biography: she once had an abortion, and didn’t fell supported enough by her boyfriend Dave. Also her failed surgery to correct her tachycardia is mentioned in her case summary. Altogether, she wants to feel empathy from the people surrounding her, from her mother, boyfriend and doctors. She even steals her brother’s disease, pretending her left side of her face is paralyzed. She is not satisfied and feels sorry for herself, but realizes that she wants to write an essay about her lesson. Jamison uses her work as an actor to reflect on her feelings and to write about her disappointment.