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Writing has never really been one of my strong suits. My interest and lack of interest in different assigned topics, has caused me to have a love-hate relationship with writing, which is even further displayed by the level of success and struggle I have with certain assignments. Elementary school was a time when I loved writing, but middle and high school english altered my love for it, bringing about both good and bad writing experiences. What was originally a method of expressing myself and telling stories, eventually became something that was boring to me, causing a lot of struggle, which I now need to change, in this new stage of life called “college”.

The earliest memory I have of writing was during my elementary school years, a time when I was still learning the basics of proper grammar and writing. Every year of elementary school, we would journal daily about a question or topic the teacher would provide, just to give us a feel for writing consistently. Back then, we had simple, broad topics, requiring little to no thinking skills. The simplicity of the topics allowed for ideas to rush to my head allowing me to quickly begin writing; especially when we had free write fridays. The free write days and broad topics allowed me to essentially write about anything I wanted to, which made the writing easy for me, and something I actually didn’t mind doing. I would have probably been able to go on forever, if the teachers had not set time limits. However, as I continued to move up in grade level, I began to receive topics that I actually needed to do some thinking about first before writing. While I was still able to adequately respond to the majority of the assigned topics, sometimes I received topics that I didn’t have a single idea of what to write about.

By the time I entered middle school, I was already a consistent abuser of the basic 5 paragraph essay format: introduction paragraph, 3 body paragraph,and conclusion paragraph; something engrained into my mind in elementary school. Literally every essay, we wrote utilized this format. Granite it was setting a foundation for how we would write essays in the future, it was still a boring and redundant way of writing essays, considering that they were each structured the same but with different topics. There was no variety at all in our writing, which was initiated a phase of writing becoming boring to me. As instructed in middle school, I was forced to continue using this format in about every essay I wrote, but all that changed in high school. I quickly learned that the 3 to 5 sentence, 5 paragraph essays wouldn’t be efficient enough in high school if I wanted to earn good grades and improve as a writer. And as I presumed, this basic format proved to be not enough for most of the given topics I began receiving early on in high school, forcing me to move out of my comfort zone, expanding and changing my essay structure and length. The same scenario happened with thesis statements too, which also became a struggle for me. Originally, I would throw together a broad statement with three supporting facts that would be the topics of discussion for each of my body paragraphs, a method that now seems very elementary as well, especially since I was taught that method in elementary school. Thesis statements in higher grade levels, began to require more depth, but also enough broadness to be able to expand upon it with several supporting reasons and ideas. It answers the question, but opens up for multiple areas of discussion that the writer can speak on, throughout the body of the essay.

High school was a time that really showed me what kind of writer I was, particularly my writing style and preferences. I have learned that I usually gravitate more to topics that are easy for me to relate to, but I have a tremendously hard time at discerning and breaking down topics that don’t appeal to me. Topics that usually appeal to me usually revolve around reminiscing a past experience, talking about my future plans, talking about influences or motivations in my life, or just about anything I am actually passionate about. Although when it comes to discussing the central themes of an authors writing, or trying to identify a main argument from a text, my mind just goes blank. This inability of mine is likely the reason why I was unable to pass either of the two AP exams that I was forced to take by my high school; both courses being required courses in the school’s curriculum. In my upper level and AP english courses, I had to really work hard to get more comfortable with writing about things I had no interest in, mainly consisting of brainstorming prompts outside of class configuring a thesis statement and a few main points I wold discuss if I were actually writing the essay. There were times in high school that I absolutely hated writing, but also some times when I enjoyed whatever I was writing. For example, in high school One of my english teachers required students to participate in an essay contest that awarded money rewards to the best essays. The contest tasked me with writing about an individual in my hometown who I not only looked up to as a role model, but who had also done a great deal to help serve the community and the city itself. After a long self-debate concerning who I wanted to write the essay about, I ended up choosing my Uncle Paul. Before writing the essay, I conducted a small interview with him, to obtain any information that I didn’t already know that would contribute to my paper. In the paper, I discussed how he was a graduate of Virginia Tech and former electrical engineer for Dominion Energy, who eventually found his purpose of giving back to the community after creating U-Turn, a Christian sports academy, and was later on being hired as the Chief Executive of the Human Resources department in the City of Richmond. After submitting my essay, a few weeks later I was recognized in front of the school for winning the top prize. This was one of the few times in my life where I saw myself as a good writer. There were also some times I can remember reading some very intriguing books, such as the Animal Farm, the Kite Runner, or the Lord of the Flies, which  I could write about for hours upon hours. Another memory being, working on my senior research project, about the representation of different racial groups as athletes compared to coaching positions; a topic that I was so passionate with that I could read up on research about it night after night. But, in spite of the delight those topics brought to me, things such as my freshman research paper, redundant and abnormal college essay questions and essays on books, that were so boring I could barely finish reading, were times when my writing absolutely sucked.

Being in my first year of college, I hope to expand on what I learned about my literacy, concerning my writing ability, in high school. Now, slightly more comfortable with maneuvering around topics with which I may not be interested in, I plan to change my focus as a writer from just trying to get by, and throwing something together, to planning ahead what I will write about and having a goal for what and how much I want to get done each time I sit down and work on whatever I am writing. I want to do this not only because I want to improve my writing ability, but also college will require me to, if I want to succeed in my English classes. College will probably require me to write about topics all the time that may be difficult or slightly confusing, but now my main goal is to find experiences in my own life to relate to the majority of the topics I am assigned, if applicable. I can talk about myself and my experiences more than I can talk about anything else, so I feel as if this approach will help me greatly. 

Even after several years of high school and AP English classes, I am still far from being an expert. There is still a lot for me to learn as a writer, to improve my writing ability and literacy as well. It is my goal to embrace all the writing I can, because all it is doing is helping me in the long run with my ability to communicate, share my ideas and express myself through written words. Never before in high school or earlier did I ever really take English or writing seriously, but after the rocky relationship I’ve had with it, I am now able to realize how much of an impact it has had and will continue to have in my life if I truly engage in it.