Personal Narrative: My Writing

In recent years, the rushing tide of typing has overwhelmed the once necessary skill of handwriting. As the days pass by computers and other 21st century electronics are becoming more and more a part human lives. Gone are the constant needs for pen and paper, often times all that is needed for notetaking is a laptop and working fingers. A recent article published by Anne Trubek titled “Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter” analyzes the importance of handwriting in the computerized world that is lived in today, as well as through a discussion on the teaching of cursive and other handwriting exercises in schools. Using a mix of pathos, logos, and minor amounts of ethos, Trubek is able to comprehensively convince her audience that handwriting is not as important or useful a skill as it used to be.

At the age of five, I learned of my struggle concerning the topic of writing. In kindergarten, this wasn't too much of a problem (because of the lack of writing-based assignments). Once I got into first grade, where the level of difficulty increased, I learned that I was not a good writer. When I say I wasn't a good writer, I do not only mean my writing quality, I also mean the physical act of writing. To get over this, I was required to practice writing at home, along with being given extra/specialized homework. With all of this help, I learned to be better at handling my writing

Although I may not remember much about learning to read, I do remember a little bit more about how I learned to write. I remember that my teacher had a chalk holder that held about four pieces of chalk. Each chalk was evenly spaced out so she could draw lines on the board to look like writing paper. We learned how to make our letters on the board. We used the big loose-leaf paper with the dotted lines in between the solid lines. She said we needed that kind of paper to make sure we wrote our letters right. There would already be a letter in the top left corner and I would just try my best to make my letters look like that one. We used the whole paper to do just one letter over and over again. We wrote our letters so much and so often that, that was when I first started to get a bump on my right middle finger. I used to hold the pencil so hard because I wanted my letters to be as good and dark as the example letter. I remember the letter that I had the biggest problem printing was the capital B. It always used to turn out looking weird. The letter that I loved writing was the S’s. I think I liked making the swirls going

I started the rough draft for my book, and I knew I had to practice my handwriting. Mrs. Cox thought it would be more authentic and interesting if our books were hand-drawn and hand-written, so I had to make sure that my writing was impeccable (and, preferably, better than every other kid’s who was doing this). I didn’t spend too much time on my art during the rough draft process; I knew I wasn’t an artist, and I wasn’t planning on frustrating myself for hours on end because I couldn’t get the hand or the foot “just

Suddenly, her piercing voice cracked my security shell that had hidden me for the past six years. “Well, I can see that there is some potential buried beneath all that mumbo-jumbo. The hard part is just digging it out!” Confused, I searched for the correct response and answered, “Um, Mrs. Smith I don’t have a shovel to dig.” Of course Mrs. Smith replied, “That’s quite all right. You can use your hands. Pick up that pencil and go to work.” Until the bell rang, that day, I was lost in a maze of red ink. My goal was to distinguish between “mumbo-jumbo” writing and writing that, with editing, and more editing, might become worthy for Mrs. Smith herself to read. Overwhelmed with excitement, I was determined to receive a “well-written” comment from Mrs. Smith or at least a “not

The mentioning of the poor e-mail from a systems analyst from a "high-tech corporation" can break down a reader's pride by illustrating how even computer whizzes can be inept at e-mailing effectively. Some readers may even be aware of their massacre of words and basic grammar, and still be too prideful to evolve as a writer. To even further shame them of their deliberate mistakes, Dillon addresses the cost of this incompetence by highlighting how "tone deaf writing had turned a minor business snarl into a corporate confrontation moving toward litigation,". But shaming a reader for atrocious writing is not the sole purpose of this educational article. To do so would expose a problem and leave no way to amend the ugly mess. The specific acknowledgment of the remedial training conducted by writing coaches offers readers who suffer from clumsy writing to seek a way to fix their ineptitude. Nevertheless, the shame that Dillon casts upon his readers could actually cause them not to seek assistance for their garbled messages out of sheer embarrassment. Humanization of the writing skills of the seemingly faultless CEO's casts light on how even the leaders of a large organization can be unable to write appropriately, and give the basic employee a sense of hope in fixing their writing

“While some argue, cursive writing belongs in the archives and common core ushers it out of schools, the evidence shows we need it as much as ever.” says Jennifer Doverspike. Some people may question why it is still necessary for cursive to be taught in our schools. Especially when we are no longer in the 21st century. Where we have now entered the new age where technology is constantly on the rise, and tablets and iPhones have taken over. This drastic change has allowed our children and adults to take the easier route. Although the electronic world has taken over and has added new elements to the writing world. Researchers have found a strong connection between writing by hand, the mind, language skills, memory and artificial thinking.

I sat down at the computer in my house upstairs, the very computer still up there that I still make books on. Orange and red leaves were scattered aimlessly across the green and brown grass. It was right after the school day. Just the beginning of the final year at Fairfield Elementary, and already I was typing a book. What to call it? I had already planned it out while jumping on my trampoline. I typed on Word, size twenty, Calibri: Wolves of War book 1: The Wolf of Greatness.

One of her first assignments was to recognize and write her own name. Through her teachers direct developmentally appropriate instruction, she became eager to name and print the alphabet. Tiffany began writing letters with and on anything she could, including her bedroom walls. Her proficiency with letter formation led to producing nonphonetic letter strings similar to the example illustrated in the Children’s Writing Progression Sample. In Sulzby’s categories of emergent writing, it is defined as strings of letters that show no evidence of letter-sound relationships (Vukelich, Christie & Enz, 2012, p.

A sharp murmur echoed in my ears as my pencil scribbled across my paper. I was working rapidly on my essay, attempting to perfect my edits. My pencil kept running along, and the murmur finally grew to a voice, stunting me from my progress. I finally looked up, into the face of a classmate, looking annoyed, asking, “What do we edit?”. I responded with the exact directions our teacher had given us, and went back to my writing. By the end of class, I was the only student finished with my essay, and had time left to do as I pleased. As I was getting out my headphones to watch a video or two on my phone, I heard my friend’s familiar voice, “Yeah, Bailee looks done of course. She loves work. It’s all she ever does.” I was momentarily proud of my reputation as a hard worker, until her words sank in: others thought I was a cold overachiever.

From an early age, I wrote. It's what I did and could usually be found with a pencil and paper in hand. Though back then it was strictly for my eyes and mine alone. It was my much-needed escape when it wasn't a physical possibility, stuck in a small town where everyone knew who you were and what everyone else was up to. As a child, I didn't care if it made sense, if I was using proper syntax—after all, it was for me. I simply let whatever was in my head out, in whichever way it chose.

When I was four years old, my older sisters, Nadia and Zoe, used to pretend to be teachers and taught me the alphabet. When I went into pre-school, I had to learn the alphabet again. When I reached kindergarten, I had to learn it for the third time. So for three years of

I walked up to the professor’s desk. I handed her my paper and I said, I don’t know what you want written down. —Barbara, Student, The College Fear Factor

When I was about five or six years old, the adults around me noticed that I did not write normally. I failed to differentiate between lowercase “b’s” and “d’s.” I wrote interchangeably from left to right and from right to left. My handwriting was close to illegible. When I was twenty-five, I was nominated for an Emmy in comedy writing because I do not write normally.

I did not like to write when I was a kid, but I saw some of the stuff teachers wrote and it allowed me to write a little better and make complete sentences. Frederick Douglass, an African American in a slavery plantation as a slave, who learned a few letters by “being in Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard, and frequently seeing carpenters, after hewing, and getting a piece of timber ready for use, write on the timber the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended” (187). The times my mom and dad read to me, and the times that I would read what the teachers were writing when I was little really inspired me to look more into reading and writing.