Personal Narrative: I Hate Writing Test

I teach fourth grade language arts where my main focus is to prepare my students to write a personal narrative for the Nebraska State Writing Test in January. Reading and writing are intertwined in my area of professional responsibility as I motivate my students to write a well-organized, creative personal narrative. As I have taught writing, I have found reading, writing, speaking, and listening go hand in hand when composing a personal narrative (Bruning, 2011, p. 299).

This is the 25 minute writing challenge, where I’m not allowed to use the backspace button on my keyboard or edit what I’m typing. There are probably going to be many typos in this small paper, but that’s apart of the challenge as I can't edit anything. I honestly have no clue what to write about, but atleast I’m 3 minutes in right now.

One of my strong points in writing is coming up with ideas and knowing how to get started on a paper. I guess you can say I am a free writer. Whatever in my head ends up on paper and I could write about a lot of things that matters to me or upsets me and feel passion when writing it down, but there also a weakness that I can’t overcome because my inner critic come along with it. Which makes me completely change and overshadow my own writing. I have a problem with revising and not being able to see the flaws in my writing, but that’s not it. I overpower one topic with another one in other words I would mash up two topics that is the exact opposite of each other which contradict my whole paper. The other problem is shorting up a sentence as well

After filling out the Writing Skills Inventory, I noticed that I rarely created a plan to help me stay organized while writing. In this paper I will explain how and why I am going to improve my writing skills by planning my essays prior to starting it. Creating a plan could include a couple of things, it could help me create a process for completing the assignment or it could help the ideas within the assignment flow better and stay in order. I want to improve this skill because I often procrastinate on my tasks, so I do not have time to really construct solid ideas and take time to revise and edit as much I should. The reason that I do not plan out my assignments is that I think that it would be faster and easier to just write it all in

Seeing the dried up yellowed skeletons of the dead can entail many a story, from the skull of Phineas Gage with its life changing hole in it to seeing the battle hardened brittle bones of warriors of past worlds, but it is a depressing sight the see the pain in the physically deformed skeletons of those who only had the help of herbs and what would now be deemed the monstrous act of bloodletting, and other ill performed helps of our ancestors. This is exactly where my imagination ran as I gazed at the terrifying images of scoliosis. It was quite bizarre and frightening to think that I had this disease that could make what would make a twenty something year old mother of the past look like a hundred year old cripple. Not

Feeling sick and tired again, nothing new same ole me. But FSA is coming up again and this year means a lot. I have to get at least a three or back into a reading intensive class for me.

With the given introduction assignment, it has brought to my attention my love hate relationship with writing. I find that in the past, writing has made me feel vulnerable in a way that not much else has. The idea that anyone could read the words I had carefully placed for a grade or judgment quite honestly scares me. Granted it depends on the circumstance surrounding the said writing, for example, in my junior year AP Language class every friday we were given 20 minutes out of class to write or draw anything we desired. This free writing period would soon become the highlight of my week. I had developed a system to get my thoughts onto paper without anyone being able to stumble upon them by accident or by a snooping younger sibling. My method

“Most of the time when I want to write I get depressed when I think about writing. Sometimes I do have an idea but it's hard to me to put them on paper, I don't know why but sometimes when I'm trying to write about idea its look like I forget everything” this is the sentence that I start my first Journey of this semester and from this time until now I learn a lot of new things and now I have an idea that how I can write correctly. I think that I find my fear of writing was because I don’t know how to write and now I have an Idea about writing and all I need some practice. As I see my biggest problem is how to use verb tense and where should I put a comma, but that problem is not big as the problem that I have at the start of the semester. I

Sitting here i think about how absolutely terrible my writing skills are and I ponder on what I could possibly write about.10 things about one topic seems kind of difficult to think of when you have to have interest in the topic yourself. Last night I sat in my bed thinking of the easiest thing for me to write about and that is my stress. It’s something I can really talk about and actually put thought into. The ten things that stress me out most would have to be the following; feeling alone, getting the short end of the stick in most situations, my mom going to rehab, working for everything I have, emotionally and physically, how my sister gets treated by her boyfriend, my dad's feelings, my house being put up for sale, where my mom is going to end up after the house gets sold, my brother Steven passing away, and the constant drinking when I see my mom.

Improvement is a strong word. I do believe this class has better prepared me for Comp 1. Some things I still need to improve upon, like, grammar, and phrasing of my word choice. Writing for me, is an escape, to write as I please. Going on long trips, vampires, and love stories are my favorite to write. My great imagination, is my strength as a writer. Being able to put into words, thoughts, that flow from my fingertips, is an amazing feeling. This class has thought me how to brainstorm ideas, before I begin to write, and that has helped a great deal, in my essay writing. Of course every writer has writers block, and I am no stranger to it. Everything Mrs.Tomas has thought us, has greatly improved my writing ability.

“You will only need a pencil for this section of the test. When time is up, please close your test booklet and put your pencil down.” I feared these words. I feared any phrases that consisted of the word “test.” This is the phrase that is used to doom high school students with anxiety early in the morning. This is the phrase that is used to doom high school students with tears and misery. As my testing instructor spoke, my hands became sweaty, my face was dripping with sweat, my stomach was tied in a knot, my body was shivering, and my eyes were weary. I knew what time it was, and I dreaded it ever since. It was time to attempt to accomplish a perfect score on something impossible, rare, and unbearable - the ACT.

Ashley woke up to her iPhone 5S alarm going off. She immediately jumped out of bed and put on her Under Armour shorts, t-shirt and socks. She walked to the bathroom to brush her teeth with Crest toothpaste and put her hair up with an Athleta hair tie. Before she headed out the door she grabbed a Dole banana to eat on her way to practice. As soon as she arrived, she put on her Nike shin guards, Adidas soccer cleats and Under Armour headband. During soccer practice Ashley kicked an Adidas soccer ball.

I vividly remember sitting in the biology classroom, taking my time with the exam and trusting that all of the answers would pop into my brain. I hadn’t even finished the test when I could hear the bell ring to signal the end of the class. Panicking, my pencil dashed to fill in answers that I hadn’t been able to complete while I requested extra time after school to finish the test. My teacher was not the type to grant extra time, and I reluctantly handed her the atrocity that was my first test. I believed that I was doomed for the rest of the year.

I can’t fail this test. I have to do well on this test. I have too.

I couldn’t believe I passed my English class! I was always one of the students at the bottom of the class. What I sucked at the most was the passages my teacher would pass out. I would have to read a short story, and answer multiple choice questions about the story. I also sucked at taking notes because when I needed a definition of a word I could never find it. My teacher taught me these two strategies that would help me with both. It wasn’t till the school assigned me tutoring.