This year, thus far, has been a year of trial and error. It is always challenging to start a new class with a new teacher because you have to learn the teachers style and adapt your writing to suit their criteria. Different instructors look for different things and especially in high school, it always feels like you need to write more for a grade than for yourself. Which sounds odd, because of course you would want an A on an assignment but often times I feel like personal discovery is lost in school writing. I know that personally I have written many papers that I was very proud of and excited to turn in but never got very good grades on, and then there were assignments where I didn't believe a single thing I had written and hated every arbitrary word of the paper, but I would get a great grade on them.
However, this year feels different. I have never written a blog before this year in English and when we were first told about the assignment I wasn't so sure about it. I figured that it would just be another tedious project that added more stress and work to my life, but I was wrong. I've found that with every blog I write, I begin to enjoy writing more and more. I had forgotten was it was like to write for me and not my teacher. Especially now that we are older and understand, or at least are starting to understand, how to write well, we can start to play with the rules. Writing is fun and we need to remember that, not everything has to be a 20 page thesis research essay, and not everything has to be dry and boring. Mr. Allen reminded us that we can start a sentence with "but" and we can use "and" more than once because writing is all about craft. We can enjoy the things we write and craft them the way we want because that's the point of writing, to put into words our personal discoveries in a way that keeps them in their truest form.
From the beginning of the school year until now I have remembered what it feels like to write for me, and not a teacher. Even though these blogs are technically for a grade, it doesn't feel like it because we get to write about, with some parameters, whatever we want. They allow us to write about what we find interesting and what we enjoy, which in turn allows us to enjoy that which we have written. I get excited now when we are assigned a blog post because I know it means that I will get to write for personal gain and exploration. Honestly, I feel like I have had more mental breakthroughs this year, than any other year before, because I am getting the chance to fully explore my thoughts. Of course this
could be a dangerous thing if taken to the extreme and writing becomes
all fun and no substance, so it is important to find a balance. But nonetheless, I fully intend to carry this lesson with me as I go through life, writing is fun and should be something that brings you joy, not stress.
Hey Kara!
ReplyDeleteI'm literally in love with this post because of the truth ringing throughout it. Remember the days before Academy back in middle school? There were strict rules that turned us into aliens; so much to the point that you couldn't tell apart my paper from yours. I don't think they meant to do this, but similar to "Plato's Cave Allegory" our voices and independent thoughts were to be hidden and chained up behind words that we didn't really mean. We were forced to look at the images going across the cave wall projector telling us how we should write. And if we didn't an F would prevail. Like King Lear we were blinded over with our grades. But sooner or later our perspectives would have to be altered by our own thoughts that we have never realized ever! Blogging was the way for me, personally, to put out all my ideas and learn from my own ideas I never knew had existed in the first place.
I think Mr. Morgan helped us transition from middle school writing to higher writing and Mt. Allen helped us get into deeper water. Every teacher has their own personal writing style but similar to Orlando, I think we all learned to toss the outside world into the garbage and throw out that fake, glossed over writing and tell the world what I've been itching to say. And I think that for people that are naturally introverted or if there is a comment that they don't want to say in class, this is the perfect thing to do to let everything out.
Also, according to some psychologists there's more security in writing something that saying it. But anyways I love this and I can completely relate. Unleash your voice and actually have fun with writing and forget about the grades for a second. It all comes down to thee question: Is learning more important or grades?
Chao!