What is the point of writing an essay, and how do the best essayists achieve the goals they set for themselves? In this four-session program, we will explore these and other basic questions about the art of composition by considering three possible reasons for writing an essay: explaining, persuading, and telling a story. Some essays, in other words, try to explain big ideas in an accessible way, helping us understand difficult theories so that we can apply them in our everyday lives. Other essays try to persuade us to change our minds about controversial ethical, religious, or political issues. And still others tell stories so that we can feel what it's like to live in someone else's skin. In order to understand these three goals and the tools good writers use to accomplish them (sometimes all at once!), we will read and analyze a selection of exemplary essays, and we will practice how to emulate them through workshops and writing exercises. Along the way, we will discuss a range of rhetorical terms and techniques. And in our final session, we will discuss one further goal of good writing, which is perhaps the hardest of all to achieve: making the reader laugh.