: Re: How can I answer high-school writing prompts without sounding weird and fake? Being given a prompt makes me freeze up immediately. Let me clarify. I'm talking about high school writing prompts.

@Correia211

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I very much dislike these prompts too, as I am very bad at writing personally. When asked to write prompts like this, I often instead of writing about actual experience, I act as if I am writing as the Generic American. I write in broad general terms, thinking as generically as I possible can. I usually use facts and logic instead of experience to explain my statements, usually write in second person (as to separate myself from the text as much as possible), and as I said, try to think in a generic sense.

For example, let's look at your first example prompt

Is there a book that you feel should be required reading for everyone? Write an essay persuading your audience to read this book.

For this, my answer would be ungodly generic. My school essays, as I submit them, for questions like this would read something like:

I believe that all books are important. Books not only act as a record of the past, a mirror of the present, but also a glimpse into our future. I believe that requiring the reading of any critical books of the past should be required, as it tells what the world once was, tells why the world is how it is now, and also prevents the world from making the same mistakes.

That response was very generic, and I only slightly answered the question. However, while it could just be my teachers, even my most strict teachers usually accept an answer phrased like that as valid. Your last example is the easiest to answer, after all, you can explain it in a technical sense. What the internet is as a system, a collection of information exchange nodes relaying signals between relay centres to distribute content across vast distances quickly.

Some people find these prompts really easy, and others like myself can't seem to write them. I've had a few cases where in class, I legitimately couldn't write an essay because I simply didn't believe it and couldn't figure out how to fake an answer. I'm not good at writing about myself. Ask me to write about facts using data, and I'm good. Ask me to write about subjective information that really doesn't exist except within my own mind, and I'm going to be lost.

I don't think there is any easy way to become 'good' at this. You just learn to deal with it when you can, and try and work with your teacher if you're unable to (after all, even though the AES seems to forget this, not everybody has the same strengths - different people are good and different things, and different people are absolutely horrible at others).

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