Is "why I write" by George Orwell an academic text?

IS “WHY I WRITE” BY GEORGE ORWELL AN ACADEMIC TEXT?

Is “why I write” an academic text? Yes, it is. That’s what I think now but it took me some time to realize this. The first time I read it seemed to me a personal text instantly, but it wasn’t until the debate we had in our classroom that I changed my mind. I was assigned to give arguments in favor, although I was adamant about its subjectivity. Suddenly I wondered what the difference between an academic and a personal text is. I must confess that although it may seem a very obvious answer, I didn’t know it. So I found the rules traditionally assigned to academic text and I came to this conclusion: George Orwell definitively did the homework and he did it well.

As there were some people who continued arguing against and I had still some doubts, the arguments that my classmates gave had the key to finally understand: we are taught to use only a few rules and one side of the story; we believe that seriousness must be the one of the main components of academic writing and as long as we write our texts this seriousness becomes the main goal. In other words, reading this text is becoming aware of how producing meaning doesn’t imply hiding our own point of view unless the teacher’s attitude tells you otherwise.