First of all, Id like to dedicate this blog post to Mrs. Barbara Bender who taught my high school sophomore year American Literature class. It wasnt that the reading selections were all that riveting, or that we had any kind of Oh, Captain, my captain, kind of moments. What made the class so pivotal in my formation as a writer is the fact Mrs. Bender made us write papersand we hated it.

Why? Because we had to submit an OUTLINE for every single paper, and the points had to match up. The...