Aldous Huxley described the essay as "a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything."
As far as definitions of the genre go, Huxley's is no more or less exact than Francis Bacon's "dispersed meditations," Samuel Johnson's "loose sally of the mind," or Edward Hoagland's metaphorical "greased pig." The essay is a slippery form indeed, one that actively resists any sort of precise, universal definition.
For the complete article, go to What Is an Essay?
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I once did that with a seminar I taught for 2L and 3L law students at a New England university. It was a paper, not an exam, so they had the entire semester, not the day. The topic was, “Is [fundamental legal concept] necessary or useful?”. Discuss the leading scholarship and provide some original thinking of your own. I provided them with the leading scholarship. When asked about the length (standard law school length was 12 pages, double spaced), I replied “As long or as short as you think necessary to adequately present your ideas. Einstein stated a fundamental law of the universe as E=mc2. If you think you can do the legal equivalent, power to you.”
My office door was always open for consultation. Result: Only one out of seven took advantage of the intellectual freedom. Four were mediocre, and two had a great deal of difficulty expressing themselves.
All in all, not an encouraging result. From what I’ve seen (admittedly an unscientific sample), the simple fact of the matter is the many (if not most) students are not intellectually curious. They are in school (undergraduate, graduate or professional) for the credentialing and not for intellectual development.
“…students are not intellectually curious. They are in school for the credentialing and not for intellectual development.”
Ain’t that the truth. I consider it a personal challenge to plot and scheme ways to awaken intellectual curiosity in my students, especially the grad students. Graduate-level students often have years of work and life experience, and the sort of maturity that prepares them for self-directed investigation of a subject. Undergrads are generally so self-centered that any assignment that does not brazenly appeal to their own (quite limited) personal experience or feelings does not awaken their interest at all.
Unless, of course, their final grade hangs in the balance.
(undergrads out there: please prove me and Mr. Bass wrong in the classroom, rather than arguing with our personal experience.)