College essay topics and writing strategies

¶ … Dr. Lavin walked through the door the first day class started, I snickered. She looked a lot like the school librarian: a frail woman past her physical prime who wore glasses that could easily be called "spectacles." She carried an armful of books without grace under her left arm and set them on the table clumsily.

William Faulkner," Dr. Lavin began without introducing herself, "Was one of America's greatest authors." She launched into a discussion about Faulkner, his writing style, his critics, and his most famous works. When she told the class that we would be reading the Sound and the Fury, with our first essay to be due at the end of the week, no one in that class had anything but respect for Dr. Lavin.

My exposure to Dr. Lavin and her approach to teaching completely transformed my idea of the potential of a liberal arts education. Before her class I wallowed in English, history, and humanities classes. Completely uninspired, I always worked hard so that I could get into college: where I believed my real education would begin.

With Dr. Lavin and her passion for literature, I grew far faster than I had in the three years prior to her class. First, Faulkner himself taught me a lot. Analyzing the Sound and the Fury proved exceptionally challenging. We were to write various interpretive essays as well as one creative writing exercise in which we attempted to mimic Faulkner's writing style. The lesson taught me how to get into the head of the writer, to see how uniquely Faulkner crafted his words and his stories, his plots and his characters. With Dr. Lavin's encouragement, I noticed for the first time what distinguished one writer from another in ways less superficial than they were on multiple-choice exams.

Dr. Lavin's teaching style was instrumental in preparing me for college too. She taught her students how to think, not what to think. Discussions in class were open and democratic. We frequently arranged our desks in a circle to stimulate discussion and include the shier members of the class. In fact, there were several students that barely said a word in other classes who would launch into impassioned analyses of the Faulkner text. Dr. Lavin brought literature to life. I expect that university literature professors do the same, encouraging their students to relish what they read rather than to read it just to pass an exam.

On the brink of my university education, I freely admit that I expect a lot from the University of Oregon. At the very least I expect to be drawn into my classes the way I was in Dr. Lavin's. I expect to be introduced to points-of-view I never would have considered on my own. Most importantly, I expect to encounter different worldviews that expand my understanding of the world and help me eliminate biases and limitations in the way I think.

Dr. Lavin helped her students become more open-minded because we were able to think for ourselves. Instead of reading what other people had to say about authors like Faulkner or books like the Sound and the Fury, we students would offer our own insights into character's choices or the author's story crafting. I imagine that even large courses at the University of Oregon encourage independent thought.