> English class is terrible. If you ever want anyone to read anything you ever write, DON'T write like you're supposed to in English classes. Write the way you do on this formum instead. A well written novel, professional memo, textbook, instruction manual, or just about anything is accessible and easy to read. A well written English essay is inaccessible and just about impossible to read by someone who isn't trained to decode it; as well such an essay is structured in an annoying and highly artificial manner.

I have to disagree with you here. Of course, we may have been taught differently, which would make this dispute silly, but the method of writing taught in English classes is highly effective and useful. It's just not the only appropriate way to write. English classes teach you, primarily, how to write formal analytical essays, and if you're writing a formal analytical essay, then you would do well to heed what was taught. The thesis structure -- introductory paragraph with a thesis statement at the end, about one point per paragraph, wrapping up with a conclusion paragraph -- is a stunningly effective form. Oddly, although I did well in high school English classes, I never really felt I got the hang of this form until years later. I've done an awful lot of writing since then -- everything from a novel to lengthy Usenet posts, including college essays where content is the important ingredient and structure isn't given a second thought -- and whenever I write something the least bit formal, I find myself adhering roughly to that formal structure taught in high school, and I continue to do so because it's simply the best way to write certain things.

But you are correct that that is not the only legitimate and effective writing structure. You can't write a casual post like this that way, nor can you write a short story that way (imagine the lack of subtlety and suspense if you stated the underlying theme to your short story straight out in the first paragraph and restated it in the last). Then again, one of my 10th grade writing assignments was, in fact, a short story. Other scattered high school English assignments included research papers and poetry.

But when in doubt -- and this would apply more to college, where you have more freedom -- turn your English teacher's weapons against him or her. In college, my freshman English teacher (for whom I do have respect, though we disagreed on this one issue, and she was otherwise quite open-minded as these things go) assigned an essay, for which I submitted something in a moderately relaxed format. She thought the writing was very good but didn't think it fit the requirements of the assignment and asked that I resubmit a different piece of writing later. I did, and I submitted something else a week or so later of an equally relaxed form. Again, she liked it, and again she didn't feel it fit the requirements of the assignment. "Come on, Sam, give me an _essay_!" she wrote on the paper.

A month later, I submitted the most beautiful, gorgeous essay -- a masterpiece of comparison/contrast that adhered stringently to the formal academic essay standard. Its acceptability as an essay was inarguable. My chosen topic? Why the first two submissions I had made were, in fact, essays. The first paragraph made the claim that they were, each successive paragraph described a reason why, and the last summed up the arguments I had made and confirmed the truth of my thesis statement.

I had the kind of English teacher that met my chosen topic with a kind of delighted fascination. I never did find out if she agreed with my defense of my first two submissions, but she was utterly thrilled that I had made the attempt.