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Time constraints placed on college-level English papers might be a good idea in the minds of the teachers, but what effect would it have on aspiring writers attending college for the first time?

The educational system must have had a serious agenda out against students when they decided to place a time limit on a creative process. From the educator's point of view, this is some grand scheme to lay raw the individual student's talent at writing. A student is evaluated on a piece of work which had to be written in under one hour on a subject they neither liked nor ever will like.

The general writing process goes something like this: the student will meander in to class knowing full well that something must be written today. Unfortunately, the indecisive student is staring at three meager topics which must be written in a single form. The teacher begins her hour-long countdown and sits, content to read while this pervading sense of chaos and doom fills the room from all angles. There are awkward glances traded between teacher and topics as the student decides which is the more evil: the topics or the one who provided them?

A long look around the room confirms the unlucky student's worst fears: the rest of the class is writing at a constant pace. That means they must have chosen their topic and decided how best to write the paper already! Oh, woe is the poor, indecisive student!

But, ah! the student glimpses an idea in his or her mind's eye. The old tradition of "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo!" Now, with topic in mind and paper on desk, the student is ready to write; however, only twenty-two minutes remain for creativity. Almost as soon as the student begins, he or she will hear the diabolic voice of the teacher: "Time to wrap it up, guys." Oh, the absolute evil of it all. The paper gets turned in at nowhere near the proper standard of writing, even for a student of this minute calibre.

The teacher will read the half-finished, half-hearted work and wonder, "Where is the structure? Where is the plot? Where, oh where will the scribbled-out lines end?!" That paper is instantly given a big, fat C with small, red marginal writings thrown in for good measure.   "After all," the teacher knows, "Homer's Odyssey was written in an hour... Or was that Brad Pitt's acceptance speech for Troy?"

No matter: the C remains and the student's grade point average is forever marred by poor choice in topics and a ticking clock.

From this author's perspective, time constraints do nothing to hone the writer's instincts.   In fact, the only thing that's worse as an acting method for ensuring a writer's authoritative manner is watching a non-stop marathon of Richard Simmon's excercise videos.

How can the educational system contort writing into some perverse, spur-of-the-moment field and expect those who are used to carefully planning out what they are going to write to come out on top?

The effects of time constraints in the composition classroom are easy to see: there is a decidedly strong dislike for writing by 65% of the students in the class. That number has a tendancy to increase after viewing their grade. What is worse is that this dislike is not a short-term problem: they will most likely go on through life with a hatred of writing that goes far beyond anything the Greeks ever had for the Trojans. In effect, it is proved by example that time constraints have a definite impact on the long-term psychological habits of students in college today.

Let us assume then that adding another hour on to the current (ridiculous) time constraint would aid the student in creating a work of literature that would surpass all expectations; also, let us add another fifteen minutes to that time to rewrite the paper and get rid of those scribbling eye-sores. It is a simple solution that will ensure the psychological well-being of our future...

And save teachers worldwide a lot of red ink.

A brown, felt fedora makes its journey across the unforgiving, cement sidewalk. The wind follows it in a path of the fall leaves and gravel; but the hat pays the wind no mind and continues its jerky waltz down the street. The hat pauses at a crossing and you can almost see it contemplating the dangers of crossing such a busy intersection in the middle of the afternoon. Almost as though the hat had made up its mind, the dance stopper. The leaves that were following came to rest behind the upturned & utterly lost-looking piece of headwear.

From behind the hat crept a five-legged, spidery thing: heavily weathered by the elements, unclean and moving in an stop-and-go motion. This thing that was crawling out from an unknown crypt seemed as lost as the fedora was. Should it get closer and ravish this object caught between it and the busy intersection?

The five-legged creature had made its decision: it lowered its body near to the ground and, without any word of warning, sprung at the unsuspecting hat & ensnared it in its legs like a spider making its kill.

But no; as you look closer, you will come to find that this is no deathly creature after all. It is, in fact, a hand belonging to a man who has seen the passages of time itself.

His hand twirled the hat one, like a champion baton-twirler, inspecting his gift from the sidewalk. He then grasped it with both hands and slowly brought it to his blunt, dripping nose. He exhaled until his lungs must have been paper-thin within his chest, then took a deep, appreciative sniff of the fedora. It had the smell of a department store and a slight scent of musk; there were a few small grey hairs still left on the brim. Whomever had lost such a prize had done so recently.

The man, satisfied wholly, twirled the hat once more and, with the fluid movements of a seasoned dancer, had it come to rest atop his unkempt hair. Instantly, the man's green eyes lit up like a child's eyes in a chocolate factory. His beaten, leathery face became thirty years younger and a grin spread infectiously from ear to ear.

People were passing by this crouched figure of a man; yet they did not see him. While they were waiting for the day's next miracle, a man had transformed from a despairing old fool into a proud, youthful figure right next to them.

The man leaned back against a brick building, not minding that no one was seeing this ugly duckling turn into a swan. The proud grin remained plastered to his face. He looked like the epitome of contentment and an object of unconventional envy. If you were to look only once at his face, you would have thought him to be a very rich man.

His clothes told a different story: fifty years ago, his tattered suit & discoloured Oxford shirt might have been worn by a wealthy scholar. Now they are just sad reminders of what could have been.

The man glanced at another group of passerby & gave them a genuine smile. A young woman caught his smile with all the skill of a catched on a baseball team. But instead of returning his kindness, she fished in her purse and found a few quarters. That very second, she switched positions on her proverbial baseball team: she was no longer the catched; she was now the pitcher. The woman almost threw the quarters at the smiling man leaning against the wall.

But he was no longer smiling. He had not wanted money, only a smile. Money did not last for more than mere seconds; but a smile would last him an eternity.

In the meanwhile, no one gave him any more glances, save for one person: a young woman across the street. She was holding an old camera and had just finished taking a flurry of pictures of the old man's transformation. Now, though, she lowered her camera and crossed the street to meet with the old man. She stood facing him and realized she had no words for what just happened.

The old man looked at her camera first. Suspiciously, his eyes traveled upwards to meet hers. The young woman, still now knowing what to say, simply gave him a heartfelt smile.

The man's pride & grin returned immediately. He introduced himself as George... and she introduced herself as Tará.

The names and events that conspired afterwards are not important. What is important is a friendship that transgressed all social boundaries and a smile that started a revolution when the young woman's photographs were published. His effortless and completely cost-free smile reminded everyone that it's not your status in society that mattered: it's how you present yourself to the world before you.