Response to "A Good Crot Is Hard to Find"

Alex Hall
A good essay consists of good grammar, no miss spellings, perfect format, and very well written and easy to comprehend. Tita Baumlin decided to give her class an assignment that goes completely against the traditional essay. But no one knew how or what to write. She gave no guideline on to write an essay. So she decided to help her students out she would write one of her own. The essay is nothing like I have ever seen before. It’s like the song by The Beatles “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite,” it just doesn’t really make any sense.
The essay has two chapters and about six different ways to write. Not the traditional ways, but ways most people have never thought of. Those ways are what really caught my eye, to see someone go completely outside the box. For example, on page forty-three (Straight line double voice”) she has one paragraph written out. If you read the whole paragraph as one, it appears to make no sense. Although half of it is italicized and half is not. If you read the italicized part all at once without reading the normal text, it makes sense. So what Tita did is in one paragraph she put two completely different texts but all as one. Very different from what I have ever seen but so inventive and creative at the same time. Another thing that Tita does that really intrigues me is she has about six different ways to write and tell you about them, all very creative. But while she is telling you about them, it is visually shown in the text what she is talking about. For example she talks about making lists. In one list she says a short vertical one. The next one is a list talking about making a long list with either short phrases or long ones. To me it is all very creative.
The one thing that really makes me feel uneasy is about five times in the essay she ends a section with a rhetorical question. Although it can be answered, it is just very hard to answer. For example she talks about crots and then fragments. Of course, while talking about fragments the whole paragraph is in fragments making it very hard to understand. At the end of it she says, “Get the point?” She leaves a space to let your mind soar to really figure it out. The only thing is that it’s very hard to actually figure it out. What point is she talking about? What am I trying to understand? In another part, at the end of chapter one she says, “It may not come again. Come again?” and then proceeds to chapter 2. What does she mean by come again? Maybe the magic she is talking about, but did it even come in the first place. Where is it coming from? All these open ended questions make me feel uneasy because I have no clue how to answer them and that is what truly bothers me the most.