How does an artist create a painting? He or she cannot simply look at a canvas and a picture appear. The artist must be equipped with proper tools to create a masterpiece: paint and brushes. The same can be said about writers. Writers are not born with the knowledge of writing an attractive paper. They must be given tools of writing and shown how to utilize them. Artists and writers without proper tools will be nothing more than blank canvases and empty pages. I used to be a blank canvas, but a teacher gave me the tools I needed, and now I am a polished portrait. My experience as a writer began at a young age. I was subjected to writing book reports throughout my elementary years. I saw nothing good in them. I was a free-spirited child and …show more content…
Fear radiated from me like the heat of the sun on the Sahara Desert. My fingers tapped and my leg shook. I had heard stories about the teacher. She was tough and she did not hesitate to give a student what he or she deserved. My first essay experience was a disaster. I tensed up and my mind clouded. I did not know how to write and in the pit of my stomach I knew my teacher would fail me. Anxiety imprisoned me. The day came for me to receive my graded essay back. Red marks covered the pages. I scanned my eyes over the words and began to lose vision to the tears welling up in my eyes. I followed the lines to the bottom of the page and stopped cold. I will never forget the last line on the page, “Great work!” I turned to my teacher and told her I did not understand. How could my essay be great work when it contained so many mistakes? She explained that the mistakes a writer makes does not define the writer. Just because I did not have the tools to write a proper essay did not mean I was incapable of doing great work. It was a simple phrase of only two words, but it gave me confidence, and a feeling of hope I had never had before. I sat a little taller in class that day. The teacher further explained that her job was to give us the right tools and if we used them writing would be a breeze. This was music to my rule-following ears. I work best when I have guidelines and instructions to follow. I
‘I am going to fail’ was the very first thought that crept into my mind on that very first day of class. Before I stepped into the classroom on the first day, I felt pretty good about my writing. I had done previously well in English, and didn’t think this class would be much of a challenge. This all changed on the first day of school, when my professor talked about the level of reading and writing expected for this class. I remember thinking ‘I don’t read, why couldn’t I have been born someone who likes to read?!’ Since this moment on the very first day of class, I have grown immensely through hard work. In this essay, I will explain what I have learned over the course of this class about myself, and about writing.
My relationship with writing has been much like roller coaster.Some experiences I had no control over. Other experiences were more influential. Ultimately it wasn’t until I started reading not because I had to read but because I wanted to, that's when my relationship reached change. I would have probably never cared about writing as I do today if it weren't for the critics in my family. When I was a child, my aunts and uncles always been in competition with who's child is better in school. I have always hated reading and writing because of the pressure to prove my family wrong was overwhelming for me. I had to prove them wrong and show them that I was capable of being "smart" which according to them was getting straight A's in all your classes.
I am an undocumented student at UC Davis. When I am asked a simple question such as, "describe your personal experiences", I ask myself: Where do I begin?
Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others and vicariously experience the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, "Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like," or "Yes, that’s what being cut from the football team felt like."
This class has been significantly more difficult than any other English class I have taken all throughout high school. This semester, I have been introduced to different styles of writing that I have never been exposed to before. This class has been stressful, but also fun. With using all of the resources I have been given throughout the semester, I have been able to do my best to further my writing abilities and hopefully only continue to grow them as I finish my later years in college. Throughout this essay, I will discuss my failures, my successes, my overall performance in the class, and my skill development skills.
As I reflect it becomes clear to me that I enjoyed writing my junior year in high school. My English teacher Mr. Duckworth was a one of a kind teacher. His classroom was a normal classroom setting with the desk all line up behind one another. All of his students would face the white erase board that was located in the front of the room. He would typically sit at his desk leaning back in his chair giving us instructions on what was to be done in the class. As we sit in the class, all I can hear are my classmates laughing and joking around as he spoke. he would already have an essay topic on the board that was to the right of us that he could easily see from his desk. This was an everyday routine for all of his classes. As we begin to write, I noticed how different classmates of mine would get up to ask for help with their essay. The students who never asked for help usually would end up with a lot of red markings on their essays.
Learning to read and write is something we all have experienced. Some experiences being difficult than others. As a kid, I can remember trying to read the daily newspapers, different types of magazines, books, and addresses on mail; basically, I tried reading anything that had words on it. My favorite thing to read were the back of cereal boxes. Nothing made me more excited than sitting at my white and pink Barbie table and chair set eating cereal while eyeballing the back of a cereal box. Only being able to correctly read one or two words, it was the first time I really felt accomplished.
For me, writing is like my 13-year-old self. That was the age where I started to really familiarize myself with hobbies I enjoyed such as a painting, playing the guitar, and making videos. It is how I feel towards writing also; it is full of so many different styles and genres, all of which give an opportunity for the writer to be creative. Writing is different for every individual, but for me, writing is a creative and thought-provoking process.
After making a hasty mental check to reassure myself I am prepared for the next day of class, I review my lesson plans one last time, sit back, relax, and ponder just exactly how I plan to go about grading the thirty essays tucked away neatly in my folder. Despite the method's classes and all of the other education courses I had taken at college, I felt ill-prepared for what lie ahead. "What's worse than writing a paper," I asked myself, only to answer quite obviously, "Grading one."
Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.
One might call it a writers block, or lacking creativity but whatever was happening, it took me a long time to get this poem on paper. I feel as though sometimes, when I get an assignment to write something creative, I struggle to use my emotions and feelings naturally to write it. I would call myself a songwriter, and for the most part I don’t find it difficult to write a song, but for some reason this poem was a challenge. I think I worry too much about “trying to sound poetic” rather than using the skills I have accumulated and just writing what my head and heart feel to write. One day I sat down to write and it just came to me and then I had my poem! It was a great journey and process because it took me such a long time to write something
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
Thank you for being my composition teacher this semester! Starting this summer, I expected a class with essays due every other day―I was delighted to find out that actually only one essay was due per week. I thought this class was going to be self taught lessons about how to write. But after, I realized that everybody knows how to write, it’s just learning about using proper words and finding your own voice―which is what I got from this class. Knowing the right verb to use was a struggle I faced at the beginning of the class.
“Class, welcome to class. I am excited to meet all of you. We have lots of exciting things that we are going to be learning this year and one thing we are going to learn is how to be writers.” My new teacher, Ms. Shaw gushed. I twisted my head, to look around. I didn’t need to, I already knew there wasn’t a solitary window and imaginarily I slapped my forehead and fell to the ground writhing as if I were in immense pain. As if a million miles away, I heard Ms. Shaw declare “The hardest part of writing is being willing to share what you write, so the first thing that we are going to do is to get to know each other.” I heard as my body continued to spasm. Would anyone would notice if I ran out of the class screaming, I pondered? With another
In this class, I have learned many things not only about different college and career pathways but about myself as well. I used to be clueless about what I want to be when I grew up. I didn't know what path to take despite my sibling already know what path they want to take. So in this class, I finally learned how much writing played a part in my life. It never occurred to me that I could make a career out of something I thought of as a hobby. I learned that I wanted to pursue writing and include it in my future. Before a career though, I needed to pass high school. Having a sister already in high school, I knew most of the information about credits and grade point averages. My parents would tell me to take classes that could help me with my career but I didn't know what career I wanted to pursue which ultimately led back to box one of finding out what I wanted to be.