Writing Essay : The Importance Of Writing In High School

In Dan Berrett’s article “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing”, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education on March 21, 2014, the author describes some issues regarding writing that first-year students face. Berrett claims that “the students’ notions about writing” do not meet their instructors’ expectations. I, as a freshman in university, agree with most of the author’s ideas. However, there are flaws in the article, which make it less convincing.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

99% of you will be using the same sources of information so the overall structure

I 've always liked writing. Even before I knew how to write I would make up stories and pretend to write them down. Each year in high school I 've written a multitude of essays on varying topics. I have selected three of these writings from each of my years in high school to examine as part of this rhetorical analysis of my writing history. As I 've grown older, my writing style has changed and I 've learned more about the world and developed my own personal writing voice more and more.

The blinds on the windows are shut, it feels like a prison cell as I sit under the spotlight. The darkness outside makes me feel somber and alone. I stare at the glowing screen and think to myself, “It’s just me and this paper.” In December of my junior year in high school, I was assigned a persuasive essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter; it was my first academic essay of the year. My previous experiences with academic writing were both stressful and unfulfilling; when the essay topic was announced, I felt only resentment and anger, I remembered my past tribulations. With my mother’s help, this essay was different; after I submitted it to the teacher, I possessed a new perspective on academic writing. From my experience, I learned that strong writing skills are vital to communication, critical thinking, and life outside of the classroom.

Throughout the course of freshmen year I have developed different skills and opinions on writing. I feel I have created a more mature style of writing and a better understanding of literature. I have changed my view of writing over this semester and acquired a strong liking for it. The importance of writing has become more visible throughout the past few months. Writing is crucial in many aspects of a person’s life. I have grown to be a more powerful and well built writer throughout this course.

At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing

There are many changes needed in high school’s English classes across the country to prepare students for college writing classes. The high school teachers need to start preparing their students for college level work from their freshman year in high school. However, they do not need to teach the things they already know otherwise they will have difficulties in college. In college students have hard times understanding the material because they understand something different then what their professor wants them to understand. There are many changes my former high school need to make versus my high school. The changes my former high school English classes needs to make are the vocabulary, sentence structure, and the important of Citation.

In his essay, "Teach Writing as a Process not a Product," Donald Murray outlines the major difference between the traditional pedagogy that directed the teaching of writing in the past and his newly hailed model. Traditionally, Murray explains, English teachers were taught to teach and evaluate students' writing as if it was a finished product of literature when, as he has discovered, students learn better if they're taught that writing is a process. For Murray, once teachers regard writing as a process, a student-centered, or writer-centered, curriculum falls into place. Rules for writing fall by the way side as writers work at their own pace to see what works best for

Writing not only reflects on one’s credibility in literacy, but also how America’s school system has failed students at writing in English courses. As a student, I would describe my writing as “honest, but complex”. For as long as I can remember, writing was always a tool that allowed a person to eloquently express his or her opinions, and analyze writing prompts given by teachers at school. Today, most students in English class solely attempt at getting a good grade rather than thoroughly understanding grammar and writing. Moreover, a solution for this would be allowing more English teachers at school to come together to improve the emphasis on proper language learning as well as the value of writing.

From an early age I have been passionate about reading. Like seriously, when I was five years old I was upset that I didn’t get the newest Little Mermaid book for Christmas. However, I have never had an interest in writing. Unfortunately, as I plan to go to graduate school to obtain my Ph.D, I really cannot avoid it. Over the years, my lack of enthusiasm about writing has caused me to view most English classes as a chore, something I needed to do in order to advance to what I really wanted to do with my life. With the risk of sounding like a suck-up, this is one of the first English classes I have valued because I have felt like I improved some aspect of my writing in each essay.

To survive your high school years, you must be calm and relaxed. So, you can study hard and get good grades. If you get good grades you will be able to get a scholarship and attend college or university for free. You also must focus on the test topic you are testing and study that topic. Unlike me who didn't really study and got a 2.8 GPA and was two points from a scholarship.

When did I realize why I have hated writing for so many years? Well, it was a Monday afternoon in the beginning of my senior year. Walking into to my last class of the day, I realized I was in an exceptionally good mood. Soon I would no longer have to sit in these uncomfortable chairs of my school. The classrooms of Blackstone Valley Tech were no different to jail cells; the concrete walls covered in cream paint, the yellow tile which seems to break everyone’s’ phones and the lack of windows, restricting the outside view. I sat one of the blue plastic chairs with metal legs in the back corner of my English class. The teacher, Mr. Kehowski, comes bolting in the room with a pile of papers in his hand. He was a tall man of normal build, had thinning hair, almost balding. His eyes were sharp and his nose pointy, wearing the usual; a sweater vest and khakis. This man was always jittering and super enthusiastic, which seemed to be a side effect of the 10 cups of coffee he had to drink each day. His voice was deep and slightly raspy, similar to the voice of a smoker.

Having grown up in a household headed by a former English major father and a mother with her master’s degree in teaching, the English language always seemed like a breeze. From age two, my brothers and I were taught to read, write, and to speak properly. I reveled in the complexities of poetry, going so far as to compose my own thoughts onto the page. However, entering into high school would prove to be detrimental to the creative seed planted from youth. As the years went on, sensitivity to ridicule caused writer’s block like I had never experienced before; many poems left unfinished, short stories thrown aside, and communication hit an all-time low, all due to the fear of ostracization. As quickly as my poetic ideas were born, they were snuffed out, and left to wither away. This all culminated until I discovered a quaint little school program that would change my life for the good.

I have been writing since I have been in Middle School. I have realized that by college it was easier for me to write down my thoughts in order for me to remember what I have said or done. Writing out my thoughts gives me a sense of recollection, knowledge, and pacification that gets me through my day. I pictured writing to be as simple as jotting down a few sentences, but as I got farther in school I realized that there is more to it than just writing sentences. English has been my most difficult subject I have ever endured, but I have somehow been managing to make excellent grades and achieving all requirements. First in the essay, I will discuss my experiences in the English life that I’ve taken so far up until college. The second part will list my struggles in creating a thesis, a work cited, and properly citing my sources used in the papers.