Personal Essay On Becoming A Writer

Upon entering Columbia College, writing was one of my weaker areas. It was very important that I gained the necessary knowledge and confidence to become a better writer. I didn’t know how to express myself and felt as though my writing was not my interest. As a result of taking English 101, I have gained a better understanding on how to properly research and build a satisfactory paper. Every paper that was assigned seemed like a struggle to complete. Before entering this class, I did not know the meaning of a thesis or why it was important, however, I obtained this skill quickly. I noticed that every paper has an argument and the thesis helps clarify the rebuttal. Now, I have a new outlook on writing. It’s a way to express my thoughts and allow others to see things through my eyes. There is no doubt that I still have a long way to go, but I know if I continue to write, I will get better. Just as I developed more skills in class, the various papers assigned helped to better structure the writer in me. In addition, the subject areas were not only interesting, but very informative and made it much easier to write about my experiences.

In the short essay, “Becoming a Writer,” penned by Russell Baker, he spoke of a memory from his past that later changed his perception of writing. After reading his piece, I reviewed the response questions listed below the essay to further my understanding of the piece. Almost like looking through a list of prompts as Russell did.

I started writing fiction in elementary school, and never looked back. Tucked away among old report cards and craft projects, my mother still has the multicolored notebook containing my first short story, written when I was in first grade. (It's a treat. I may share it here at some point.) So, when I say that writing in ingrained in me, that it's part of who I am, I mean it.

A semester has passed since I started college and my journey of becoming a better writer. It has been a very important semester for my future college career, and I would not be here without the things I have accomplished. The composition program has really helped me to prepare for what college writing is all about. Now standing here and looking back I could not imagine how it would be without that class. I believe my English, and my writing is better than it has ever been, and all thanks to the composition program.

My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.

“ There are your radish seeds everyone.” Said Mr. Susick. The whole class looked around at each other with a blank confused face. It was the first day of junior year in my English class. Mr. Susick started talking about how our first assignment would be to grow radishes. We were all thinking, how in the world does gardening relate to English class. I had heard about this project from previous juniors but none of them said what the real reason was. All Mr. Susick said was that you need to let the project teach itself and get into nature. He left us with one bit of information along with the requirements to start. The main goal of the assignment was to extract your own universal truths. For the first time in English class,

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

English in its entirety can be simply described as author, biologist and physician, Lewis Thomas had once said, “We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other” (Thomas 120). The impact literature can bring onto others is simply amazing and is a gift that should be shared with everyone. This spring semester has quickly broadened my perspective. Being that this is my freshman year in college I prodded around ideas of what majors I had interests in. I

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,

There is a multitude of jobs and careers I want to have, as some of you may know, but I think we’re only allowed to talk about one. However, there is one job in particular that I know that I’ll do, whether I’m paid for it or not. That job is writing. Not only do you need language skills, but I believe that you will need creativity and an immense amount of patience in order to be a successful writer of any sort.

My writing process begins with my brainstorming ideas and writing them down on a separate piece of paper. That way I already know what Im going to be writing about and not just putting down a bunch of gibberish into my assignment. But this process only works if im having to writing an actual story or when doing a persuasive essay. Once all my ideas are jot down or I have what I’m going to write about in my head, I start writing my paper.

Reading and writing has always played a vital part in my life. From toddler to adult, pre-elementary to college, I’ve managed to sharpen both skills to my liking. However, even though it significantly helped, schooling was not what influenced me to continue developing those skills into talent. Many different things shaped and influenced my learning, and now reading and writing have become the safety net of my life. I know that even if I have nothing else in the future, I’ll still have my talent and knowledge. To ensure my success, I hope to further develop those skills so that I may fulfill my wishes.

My post secondary goal after high school is to go to the Vet Tech Institute of Pittsburgh to become a veterinarian technician within a span of eighteen months. I am hoping this Honors English course will help to improve my writing skills, note taking skills, and get me use to the type of things I will experience in college. If I were to improve as a writer it would benefit me by improving my ability to do lab write-ups. If I incorporate my grammar skills into my vocabulary it will also benefit me in seeming to be a more intelligent young adult, which will hopefully cause the teachers to take me more seriously. By becoming a better writer I could become a better student altogether. Becoming a better note taker is a skill I really hope I adapt

Anais Nin, a Cuban author, once said, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment

My experiences in writing have been minimal. I have only learned the basics of writing, like putting together sentences, forming paragraphs with sentences, and things like that. Since I have been taking college English, I can tell my writing has improved a lot. In the future, I hope to be able to improve tremendously at writing essays, paragraphs, research papers, documents, and stories so that I have very little to no errors with drafting and final products. I predict I will be a well rounded writer when I graduate from college.