My First Block Period With Mrs. G

Unlike many schools across the nation, my school sports the use of block periods. Without fail, Thursdays are filled with odd numbered two hour periods, and Fridays filled with even numbered two hour periods. (The periods are more around the one hour and forty minute mark, but let's face it, they sure as hell feel like two hours) But my first period on Thursday was different, it was my first experience with Mrs. G and the AP Comp class for a full two hours. To my genuine surprise, i actually enjoyed myself. Perhaps it was the raunchy jokes, or maybe the hilarious digressions. But if i had to guess, it would be the material we discussed and anlyzed that day. 
We read two essays, "The Essayification of Everything" by Christy Wampole , and "Blogs vs. Term Papers"  by Matt Richtel. The titles are quite self-explanatory, but i urge you to take the time to read each essay thoroughly.  "Blogs vs. Term Papers" struck a particular cord with me. As an aspiring high school student hoping to one day go strait to a four year college, the horror story's of the twenty page term paper on that book no one read still scare me from time to time. Richtel makes the point that term papers are falling out of favor, citing sources who believe it is due to lack of reading. I do not agree. Long essays and research papers are disappearing due to the slowly dieing rigorousness of our curriculum. Every year new legislation is passed lowering the standards expected of each student. This problem goes much deeper and could take up thousands upon thousands of words, yet i shall leave it at: the amount of reading expected is not the problem, it is the frailness of our educational code. Conn Carrol of the Washington Examiner puts it into undeniable numbers. 
Back to the essay, in a quote we discussed in class, William H. Fitzhugh states that "Writing is being murdered." While i agree with Fitzhugh on his message, there is a key word missing. "Traditional" writing is being murdered. The old style tedious writing is disappearing as the new generation moves in, which as many of us have seen, is all about availability and speed. The ideas expressed in this post could be stretched to a ten page report, but who has time to read that amount these days? Not many people do. Another point is simple attraction. Let a student use his laptop in school to write about issues he is genuinely interested in rather than a dusty topic that has been written about so much that it causes the professor to fall asleep reading the same ideas, more students will be motivated to write. Overall, traditional writing is being murdered, and writing as a whole is being revitalized.
Playing on the idea that the oncoming generation has very little time to stop and think, Christy Wampole in "The Essayification of Everything" states the essays written today lack the dogmatism of the past. They are empty. This problem is not due to the number of essays, but the writers themselves. They are devoid of thought. Playing the devil's advocate, i have to disagree. I believe the essays Wampole is looking for are out there, buried under thousands of "attempts". As more and more people begin to write, as world literacy increases, and as technology spreads, essays are written more frequently. For argument's sake, lets say less than one percent are the type of essays that Wampole is looking for are created everyday. Again, theoretically, in the past only one hundred essays were written a day, making that one essay stick out above the rest. When a million are written, that thousand is hard to find. Do not stop looking for greatness, you will find it in the place you least expect it.