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
I learned a few interesting reasons regarding my overall feelings for writing. Up until now, I never examined why I disliked writing. Looking back at my past experiences with writing I now have a better understanding on what was holding me back. Self-confidence certainly played a large factor in my avoidance of writing. After writing the essay on my relationship with writing, I can use what I have learned from that exercise and apply it to my future writing adventures. I need to be more self-confident, and not worry about any judgments. I need to realize that I am able to express my thoughts through writing. This exercise gave me a very good perspective on my avoidance of writing and will help propel me to write more in the future.
I have found becoming a writer every bit as much a process as writing itself. One does not become a writer overnight but over time, and I offer the following stories as examples of some of the steps I have taken in what is proving to be a life-long process.
Writing has always been a love – hate relationship of mine. In the past, I have had many writing experiences, both good and bad. I find many things involved with writing both simple and difficult. But in the end, I hope to become a better writer, so it can play an important role in my future.
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
Writing is the ability to form words and phrases into a well thought-out idea. However, many people find writing to be difficult and tedious at times. Even professional writers have reported episodes of “Writer’s Block”. Nonetheless, writing is a fundamental practice of an educated individual. In order to become a great writer one must examine their strengths, weakness, and strategies for perfecting the art of writing.
What kind of writer am I? That’s a trick question for which there is not a satisfactory answer. My experience with writing has never been my favorite. In fact, English has always been my least favorite subject. Studying math and science is what I enjoy; these have come rather easy for me. English, for some reason I will never understand, has always required extra effort for me actually to do well. Sure, there have been plenty of times that I have been required to write a few research papers, several literary analyses, and numerous essays; but I have more weaknesses than strengths as a writer. My writing experience has, and will probably stay, limited to papers on given subjects assigned to me. Besides school work and possibly my field of work requirements, I will most likely never delve into any other form of writing. I am positive that there are more like me: more people that struggles with English writing. I have wondered why there were so many English related tasks in school. In doing so, I have grown to execrate the subject without becoming fully aware of its future benefits. Although I may have never been a devoted writer, I do realize the profit of being a good writer along with the advantages that good writers have over me.
It is the end of this high school year and I am glad to say that I accomplished many things. The idea of doing a blog was a very successful one, given that I was able to write about what i like and improve my writing skills. Therefore, I believe that throughout this year I was able to grow as a writer, express myself better, and expand my knowledge.
My senior year I have learn a lot thanks to my teachers that been helping me improve in writing throughout the year. All the information my teachers been given me help me outside of school on how to write letters on why should I be accepted into their college. I been putting time and effort on becoming a better writer. Although I been absent some days where my teacher has gone over expository and persuasive I am confident that this has no affect on me. I’m sure it does not affect me because why im absent I just study at home and the next day I ask my teacher for the lesson I missed in class.
Writing is something I have always thoroughly enjoyed and used as a pass time, although, when I am forced to write it can be a struggle. There is something about being forced to write about a topic from a differing perspective that creates writers block. For me, writing academically creates this writers block. This hindrance to my writing tends to not only be a blow to my academic career, but also my confidence as a writer. These troubles have led to me having to develop different writing strategies than what I am typically used too.
Looking back on the last 8 weeks in this class, I have learned a lot about myself as a writer, and that I have a lot more to learn. Though I do not consider myself to be a writer, once we are placed in the student role and given an assignment that involves writing a paper, what you do or do not consider yourself does not matter. You are now a writer when placed in a role as a writer. This has been something that I have personally struggled with due to my decision to put myself in a student role, later than normal. Whether we accept our roles as writers or not, we must identify what type of writers we are so that we can identify our strengths and weaknesses, and how to approach them.
Writing is a fundamental part of a student’s life. Every student needs to develop good writing skills in their education process in order to have a successful future. Writing is critical even if you do not decide to go to college, It is essential in everyday life. Many students go crazy when their teachers assigns them an assay but for many of them the solution is the writing process. There are several writing processes and as a student I have my own way of writing process. My writing process is formed in 5 easy steps: Collect ideas, outline important information, drafts, revision and editing. Following these steps I tried to get a successful job.
Three days and several rough drafts later I am finally ready to type this essay. You see, I am not a writer- I don’t have the patience nor the talent, it seems. For as long as I can remember writing has proved to be quite the obstacle throughout the whole of my academic career. And, yet, I have had so many (teachers, fellow students, etc.) compliment me on my so-called skills. I have never understood that. If I am so talented at writing, why then must it be so difficult?
Being home educated throughout the duration of high school, I found that much of my education came from being self motivated and self taught. Having come from a family that was focused on education and my social skills—my Father with a Bachelor 's in education, and my mother teaching my brother and me at home—I felt strongly about reading and gaining knowledge in various areas of interest. However, I excelled most expediently in any coursework that had a creative or expressive quality to it. These were the mediums that felt the most natural. Although I was initially a slow writer, my proficiency began to evolve during my time in community college, when I took a composition class with a professor that strongly encouraged me to express myself through my creative writing.
Adam Osborne once said, “The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake¬¬ - you can’t learn anything from being perfect.” Writing has not always been one of my favorite things to do. I used to dread hearing, “We are going to be doing a writing assignment today.” I would always procrastinate and wait until the last minute to do the assignment and wonder why my grade was always lower than I had expected. From then on, I decided that I need to change how I felt about writing. I think I struggled the most with writing because I didn’t have a teacher to really teach me the right way until I got to seventh grade. There were several teachers that impacted my writing, but there were three that stuck out to me. The three teachers that have had the biggest impact on my writing were Mrs. Blankenship, Mrs. Dickerson, and Mrs. Atkins.
They enveloped me like the saltwater of the ocean, the words sporadically dragging me down. I had always excelled at math and science; however, when it came to writing, especially about myself, I was an ordinary student. I hoped that at some point, spontaneously, my ability to write would be revamped to match my skills in problem-solving. Unfortunately, that point never came, and I had to learn how to substitute many of the words I used with larger, more descriptive words. Even so, my struggle with writing persisted, and the assignments continued to pour in. Eventually, I discovered that my conflict with essays and other compositions was due, in part, to my displeasure of writing about myself and my experiences. My aversion to writing has always been natural. Although, I learned that this abhorrence is reduced when I focus on a topic that interests me or when I control my writing’s development and outcome. The only type of writing that I had ever produced in school was the overly structured essays that were focused on me/myself. I assumed that no other approaches existed; however, I eventually discovered which elements of the writing process that were the roots of my displeasure.