While writing might seem like a simple task, it can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Sometimes it can be hard to express the ideas in your mind in the words of a paper. This results in a disconnect with what a writer may actually think. A great writer is one that can transform his thoughts into words perfectly. This is a craft that takes many years to perfect, which is why writing is troublesome for a lot of us. Many students also have had bad experiences with writing. Maybe they had a teacher that didn’t try to support them and their writing. They might not have ever gotten the help they needed and may feel that they are in a hole where their writing can’t get better. At this point, they just accept that their writing will never get better.
I have felt like this many times in the past, so I can completely understand the way a lot of people feel about writing. I have noticed that it has always taken a great teacher to help me get past these points. Those teachers take the time to empower me and truly help me improve my writing. It takes more than just some markings on a paper for someone to improve their writing. I have noticed that if I am able to have a conversation about my writing with a teacher, they can better understand what I am trying to convey, and therefore can show me a better way to express my ideas through my writing. These connections I have had with some of my teachers have really empowered me and my writing greatly.
Writing for me can be frustrating
A person can read and write a great deal in one day whether they realize it or not. Whether it be texting a friend or reading a textbook for a certain class, you are reading and writing constantly and a daily basis. What surprised me the most about the reading and writing that I did on Sunday was how much I am reading and writing on my phone. Whether I am texting to coordinate plans with a friend for the night or reading a random article I saw while reading a Facebook news feed, I am constantly reading and writing on my phone. I never considered it reading and writing when I used my phone, I just saw it as looking at my phone. Just staring at this four-inch screen for some sort of entertainment. What also surprised me was how much we read without noticing it. You can walk down State Street and you will be constantly reading by looking at stores, posters, or even words on a bus that is passing by. Our eyes and brains are looking at and reading words all the time.
It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.
In high school I was not the best at writing. I did not find this out until I was places in advanced English. I was used to writing papers that had to be simple. So when I started receiving C’s and D’s I told myself something had to change. I finally realized that I could not write as well as most of my classmates. So, what I ended up doing was making my papers more complex and making my sentences stronger. When I applied myself I became a stronger writer. As I took the diagnostic test I saw I was making a lot of mistakes. At the end I made a 70. From this I could see why I encountered the bad experiences in high school and in college.
The inevitable had happened; I, as a small child, was demanded to read. A little antisocial human being launched into a world of, at first, difficult words and lengthy phrases. While words and literacy were forced into my mind, I had reluctantly begun the adventure to enjoy and accept the art of literature. Later however, my hopes and dreams were crushed to pieces by a gruesome teacher with an interesting form of a so called “grading policy.”
I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.
When presented with the question, “who are you as a writer?”, I was speechless at first. But after thinking about it, I realized who I am as a writer has been influenced by so many different sponsors throughout my life and there was not a short, concrete answer. Brandt mentions that “literacy is sponsored by people, institutions, and circumstances that both make it possible for a person to become literate and shape the way the person actually acquires literacy.” (Brandt 43) My attitude towards writing has been influenced by teachers, both negatively and positively, by my mother, and by academic assignments over the years. My answer to the question can only be answered by a narrative of my writing life. I have convinced myself that I am a terrible writer, and when presented with a writing assignment, I get anxious instantly. I see writing as a burden and a huge obstacle that gets placed in my life. Academic writing is not fun, but something I value due to the fact that we are a grade driven society. When writing, I write to the guidelines in order to receive points for the requested criteria. The reason being, I gave up on expressing my own ideas because I had been shut down by so many teachers throughout my education. I tried to write down what came to my mind and put my own twist on things, but that was not the “right” way to write papers. In order to make both my teachers and my grades happy, I wrote what they wanted to hear, and even then I was not to the level they
As a writer, I find myself getting lost. Typically, when I go to start writing I hit a brick wall. It’s as if all my thoughts suddenly escape my mind and I draw a blank. It takes me forever to conjure up some form of a thesis and then takes even longer to figure out what I should write to support it in a way that makes sense. Then, attempting to find a way to organize my ideas and put them together in cohesive paragraphs seems like an impossible task in the moment. It is not uncommon for me to get flustered and just throw something down on the paper because I get anxious seeing how much work is left to do. If I end up going back to read it over prior to submission,
It is hard for me to focus on writing. When you read my writings, it is very obvious within the first paragraph. My work is much better, and more enjoyable to read, when I write in a quiet place with few distractions. My teachers never really questioned my writing until 10th grade. I could wait till the night before a paper was due, crank one out in under an hour, and the teacher would use it for an example paper in class the next day. Ms. Yard, my 10th grade teacher, was the first to call my writing bluff. I learned that writing was much more then writing. In order to have a good writing piece, as explained in “What Writing Is”, you have to be able to write something that is
Writing is a skill that is used on a daily basis in different mediums: emails, texts, academic papers, and social media platforms. While some mediums are more formal than others, writing in a proper way is still critical. For some, writing is second nature while others face difficulties constructing the perfect message. Growing up, the concept of writing was much more enjoyable than physically putting pen to paper. I found value in the idea of being able to express myself through my writing, yet when it came to academic papers, I froze. This was due to the fact that my writing was being judged, and that elicited fear which, in turn, made me second guess my writing abilities. While attending community college, I was required to take an
English is a hard language to learn, for there are numerous elements of effective usage and writing. Many people, including me, struggle in writing because of a lack of knowledge. Since middle school, English was not a strong suit of mine. I struggled with the simplest of tasks often taking a considerably longer time to complete a task than the other students. Unmotivated teachers and a lack of interest resulted in remedial writing skills. To put it simply, I had little confidence in my writing and I dreaded taking the class because of the writing involved. In spite of my fears, I took the course and I was able to perfect and challenge my mediocre writing skills.
Can you consider myself to be a terrible writer? Most writers get inspiration from experiences, circumstance, or imaginations make a contribution in authors storyline. Each writers have their own style of writing since they all different messages, languages, and tone for the reader to actual take a position in the narrator’s writing. In a past even, when my grandfather is no longer with me, he has made a huge contribution in academic life.
Reading and writing has always created a sense of understanding for me in my art. Reading in the literal sense is a way that we understand text or symbols in our minds which in turn create meaning. Writing also in a literal sense is our way of communicating our knowledge and emotions to others through symbols in text. The human experience for all people includes communication and through reading and writing this experience is created. From the beginning of this course, my only prior experience with reading and writing were high school level course over literature and reading. I had an average level of rhetoric,reading,writing and language overall however, understanding the significance of these subjects was never put forth in such a way until I took this course. I discovered through this course that reading is a combination of not only our “visual information” but also our “nonvisual information”. My comprehension of reading has evolved from reading
This is something that most writers have in common, and that must be addressed in teaching. Teaching a student to never be complacent with their writing and never give into this inner critic, is a major step to truly enlightening them. As by comparison, a writer that is constantly striving towards improving their writing and always working to make it better. Never feeling as though their work is truly perfect. Will produce much better works than one who simply gives up and decides that it simply isn’t for them. Another important comparison that many writers share is what steps they took to improve their work. For most it is writing, reading and rewriting this method allows for results and quick improvement of writing. It must be taught to students that they can always make their work better. A method to encourage this is to make essay topics something enjoyable for the students to write about, as writing about something one does not care about. Generally, results in lazy un-inventive work, that is as boring to read and grade as it was for the students to write. That is in
All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.
Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s