How I Reflect My Academic Writing History

My history as a writer began ever since I was in school. I have always loved writing. I also love to read. I find it easy to express how I feel on paper. Language arts has always been one of my favorite classes in school.

It wasn’t until this class, where I was told that I was not being asked to explain in great detail what has shaped me into this amazing writer that I am today, but instead to explain what type of writing I feel comfortable with. At that point I realized that this assignment may not be quite as difficult as I thought.

From the early beginning of the school year to the current day, my writing skills and knowledge have improved and broadened over time. If not drastic, the change is noticeable nevertheless. For almost an entirety of eighth grade, assignments of varying difficulty challenged me to a degree. To be frank, some seemed as though they were beyond my comprehension and ability. However, determination amalgamated with knowledge obtained in advance helped me to overcome my doubts, for I exceeded my expectations; surprisingly good grades and comments are a delight, owing to the fact of that I don’t tend to think of myself as being proficient at writing. Consequently, the assignments given to me this school year shaped me into who I am as a writer.

I had the meanest-seeming, harshest teacher you could get as a ten-year-old, Mrs. Farrier. She was a creative writing and basic politics teacher, and she was merciless when she evaluated our attempts to write from her prompt of unicorns and pegai (apparently that’s plural for ‘pegasus’). Red pen slashed sentences and paragraphs and forcing me to write again on fresh paper, she simultaneously made me loathe writing and absolutely made a better writer. I learned to value details and plot consistency, introductions to draw an audience in and how to flow down to a resolution, but I absolutely hated her

Throughout my many years of taking English courses I have learned great things. With this, I have had great writing experiences and developed strength in writing. Though I have learned many new skills on writing, I still strive to be a better writer. In this essay, I will discuss how my education, prior writing experiences, writing strengths, and writing weaknesses factor into my choice.

Even as a young kid in elementary school, writing was one of my weakest subjects. I always sighed when one of my teachers mentioned a writing assignment. It started in elementary school and continues to affect me to this day. Starting out my junior year, I was hesitant to have Mr. Zollman as a teacher because I heard he was a tough grader. I soon found out that was true, but he ended up being the most helpful teacher to get me through my writing problems. Mr. Zollman helped me get through my struggles of writing papers, and he taught me to be a stronger writer.

I have always been pretty successful in school; however, writing has always been one of my greatest weaknesses. The overwhelming pressure of coming up with what to say and how to say it is extremely stressful for me, and I typically give up on perfecting whatever assignment I am working on. Up until high school, my writing had accomplished just enough to pass me on to the next course. My experience at Savannah Arts Academy, however, inspired me to approach writing in a completely new way.

After looking back at all the writing I have accomplished in this class and experiences I have faced in other English classes, I realized how they have affected me as a writer and where I stand as one as of now. The writer I am today has been greatly benefited with years of learning English in school and other literacy sponsors. Throughout the years, I have learned a number of ways to write and I have been positively impacted by these methods. I now know the type of writer that I am and how I write best and in under which conditions. Now, I have my own writing process that most likely differs from my peers.

​In the beginning of my educational career, I detested anything that pertained to writing: paragraphs, fill-in-the-blank sentences, and especially poetry. However, a 10th-grade English class changed my perspective on the necessity of conveying my thoughts onto paper with effectiveness, and writing became the cargo boat of my thoughts- the manifestation of my progressively maturing mind. I began to write daily- approximately 4 pages per day- and I developed a writing skill that my friends envy and a unique eloquence that their tongues could only wish to formulate on their own. As an extension of my 11th-grade AP English class, I read additional works of writers we learned in class from different periods- Emerson, Twain, Fitzgerald, and Thoreau-

I’ve never been the type to just love writing. Before my senior year in high school, I always felt like writing was more of a job. I knew writing had educational purposes, but it still didn’t make the process any better. My whole view on writing changed last year. My 12th grade English teacher, Heather Carpenter, influenced the way I viewed writing. My whole class was assigned to write almost 30 papers for a Senior Portfolio. Each paper had us reflect on our high school years or tell us about our future plans. When I first heard about this assignment, I immediately dreaded all the work. As we all worked through the assignment, my dread turned into enjoyment for writing, all because of my teacher and they way I started to view writing. Even though writing can be difficult and time consuming, it’s good to be an open minded writer because it can release inner thoughts and emotions and make a person willing to consider new ideas.

Mr. Carter was my English teacher freshman year. Going into the class, I thought I wrote well. After our first essays as a class, he told us that we were boring writers. Initially, I felt offended: in middle school, teachers thought I was a good writer, so why didn’t he? Even though I didn’t necessarily agree or like that he had said that, I decided to try to please him and be less boring using his suggestion of making a controversial thesis. While this made essays take much longer, it also made them more fun to write. He was correct. I had been a terribly boring writer and will forever feel sorry for my middle school teachers who had to read my essays. He taught me about the importance of structure in a paper while also teaching me to be more

I like to write strong essays with few grammar and spelling errors. I believe that I occasionally overlook my essays, and I allow a few mistakes to pass by; nonetheless, I accept my errors and I learn from them. I always begin my writing process with an initial thought to begin with. I tend to write my works chronologically, similarly to the way a person tells a story. I am aware of my essay’s potential once I receive feedback from other peers. I often like to revise the essays myself twice, after I allow another peer to revise my essay and provide commentary. However, whenever I do not have the time in my schedule to conduct such a process, I instead revise it myself twice on the day before I submit the paper to the teacher. I am fairly content with the extent of my abilities as a writer, but I would like to further develop my skills by the end of the semester. I am confident that I will learn all the skills necessary to succeed in my English 105 class. In addition, I believe that the skills that I will acquire in the class must enable me to succeed in the

I have always loved writing and reading. Maybe it is because my mother imprinted it upon my brother and myself to read a lot. Perhaps it is because I truly love the smell and feel of books, or the release you get from writing out what you have been keeping inside. Either way, I have loved writing and reading, and this year I truly learned what it means to be a writer. In previous years, there has always been an understanding between students and their teachers about writing. You, as the student, write EXACTLY what is expected of you and they, as the teacher, grade accordingly. In this class, Dual Enrollment, while there is a certain standard for your writing, one has the freedom to truly express what it is they want to say. So to have that freedom, and a teacher who does not caudle you with your work, one can really flourish and improve his or her writing skills. For example: in the previous sentence, I wrote, “…his or her…”, but originally I had written, “…their…”; that was incorrect.

From the games you played as children, to names of people you meet, past experiences can change our perception in life. the way you feel about objects or activities all the time. Occasionally for the better, and other times they become tarnished with your negative connotation to the object. When I was younger, I loved to read and write. I tried writing my own books and poems for fun nearly every night. I would later read them to my mother, hoping she would love it and praise me for it. Previously in school, my teachers rarely assigned written assignments other than the occasional journal entry. Then, one year in elementary school, the other students and I began getting assigned specific writing assignments with a multitude of rules and directions I had to follow on a regular basis. I quickly began to hate these assigned readings and writings and gradually fell out of love with words. My elementary school eventually noticed that I did not enjoy the assignments from my grades and made the assumption that I was slower at learning than the rest of the class. Every day they began to pull me and a few other kids out of class to teach us to spell, read, write and intermittently even how to speak. This embarrassed me because I knew the other kids knew only the “dumb” kids were taken to other classes. It took until eighth grade for me to finally start reading in my free time, however till this day I still cannot stand writing.

Reflecting upon my previous work over this past semester I have discovered some reoccurring themes that threaded throughout my weekly writing assignments. I would be the first to say that I am a “writer in progress”. As a young student, I received special education services in literacy and math. My early struggles with literacy has seeped into my writing as I have continued my academic career. Being given the opportunity to take the time to reflect upon my work from one class over a period of time and receive consistent feedback has been a first for me and something that I need to do on my own from now on to grow as a writer.