The annotated essay

One complete document, then every construct in it. The file is core vocabulary only — headings, emphasis, a table, a figure, a list — so nothing needs a definition.

The whole file

(h1 Let Them Sleep: The Case for Later School Start Times h1)

Jordan Ellis@br
Ms. Rivera — English 11@br
5 July 2026

(blockquote "Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together." — Thomas Dekker blockquote)

American high schools start too early. Later start times would improve
students' health, their grades and their safety on the road.

(h2 The Teenage Clock Runs Late h2)

The heart of the problem is not attitude but chemistry — teenagers lose an hour
or more of the rest their developing brain requires (em every single night em).

@table(caption: Recommended versus actual sleep for adolescents, rows: [
  [Group, Recommended sleep, Typical school night]
  [Teens 13 to 18, 8 to 10 hours, 6.5 to 7 hours]
])

(h2 The Evidence from Districts h2)

@figure
@img(src: assets/attendance.svg, alt: Bar chart: attendance rising from 82 to 94 percent, size: medium)
(figcaption Figure 1. On-time attendance before and after a later start. figcaption)
figure@

(h2 Conclusion h2)

An hour of sleep is the cheapest reform a district will ever make.

(h2 Works Cited h2)

@ol
(li American Academy of Pediatrics. "School Start Times for Adolescents." (em Pediatrics em), vol. 134, no. 3, 2014. li)
(li Dekker, Thomas. (em The Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grissell em). 1603. li)
ol@

The title

(h1 … h1) is the parenthesis form of @h1 … h1@ — shorter to type for one line. The colon inside is ordinary text.

The byline

Three lines with no blank between are one paragraph. @br glued to the end of a word forces a visible break; it is void, so it never closes. Output: Jordan Ellis Ms. Rivera — English 11 5 July 2026.

The epigraph

A blockquote sets the quotation apart. Straight quotes and the em dash pass through as typed (quotes are escaped to " in HTML).

The thesis statement

A plain paragraph — no node, no indentation. Prose is the default.

Sections and emphasis

Every section is an (h2 … h2) and the paragraphs under it. (em every single night em) and _every single night_ give the same .

The data table

rows takes a list of rows, one per line; the first row becomes th header cells, the rest td rows. caption becomes the table's <caption>. A cell may not contain a comma — the comma separates cells. Use child @row / @col nodes for rich cells (see Tables).

The figure

figure centres its contents. size: medium caps the image at 380px (presets: small, medium, large, full, or a number or percentage). The alt value holds a colon without quoting: it runs to the next declared parameter, size. The src path is relative to the essay file.

Works Cited

Each (li … li) is one entry; (em … em) italicises the source title inside it.

Build

wit build essay.wit -o essay.pdf

Use -o essay.html for a web page, or --fragment to see the bare markup.