There’s a crazed lunatic at the dark back of our heads that wants to see us fail. He used to come out for me when I was in high school when an essay was assigned and shut down my higher cognitive functions until all that was left was the impulse to watch endless reruns of The Office.

The only thing that would at last trigger me into booting this moron was the realization that the essay was due the next day (or the next class period…), and if I blew it off any more, the even more uncomfortable fear lurked of not turning in the essay, failing out of school, being disowned by my parents, dishonored by my town, getting tarred and feathered, and very possibly being extradited into Guantanamo Bay. Some are not even so lucky in this last stop motivation….

But what if there was a better way? What if there was a simple, concrete system that took something abstract and intangible like essay writing into something linear and easily engaged? What if the process of writing an essay was a matter of spreading out a gargantuan task into smaller, easily achievable pieces, rather than scraping your face across the pavement while an alarm bellows ominous failure?

That is exactly what this course intends to provide.