I would consider myself an adequate writer. In some of my writing I strive. Other times, my writing falls flat. Whether my paper is tremendous or terrible depends on several factors. These include the subject of the paper, who I am addressing, and even how clean my bedroom is. Also, several papers and people have influenced me throughout the course of my life, making me the writer I am today.
The earliest memory of writing I have is luckily a positive one. It is sitting by my fireplace on Christmas Eve, writing a message to Santa Clause. While I wrote my eager, little heart out, my father would help me with my spelling and grammar so that Santa would be, “Extra proud!” Even though I did like writing as a child, my self-esteem in my own writing was immensely low. That was until Mr. Smith’s class in fifth grade. I had been out of school for a couple weeks after having surgery. When I came back, I found that the rest of the class had started on a paper on the D.A.R.E. Program. Mr. Smith explained to me that I was a competition; the kids with the best papers were able to read it in front of a crowd consisting of our parents. Considering that I started a week later than every else, I had no intentions of winning and was shocked when I did. I was also very proud of myself.
While writing in elementary school seemed glamorous, in junior high, it was everything but. These were the years I learned how inconstant writing actually is. This was also the time the writing was the most frustrating for me. I struggled with my seventh and eighth grade teacher, Coach Wright. In his class we had to write a descriptive paragraph about our bedroom. Coach did not like my paper at all and told me I needed to go from left to right until I circled my whole room. After revising my paper, I realized that now I hated it, but grudgingly, I handed it in.
Another negative experience from his class was a poem I had written. I put a lot of heart, time and effort into this poem because the theme I was writing it on meant so much to me. It was on my first dog dying. After handing in a rough draft, Coach congratulated me on it. He said it did not need to be changed at all and that he was able to easily connect to my pain. A couple of days after, when we handed in the final draft, he gave me a C- and told me it was bland. I was so frustrated that he had completely flip-flopped on his opinions. I started to not care as much about writing because I could not understand what people wanted from my writing after that experience.
My views on writing stayed the same until last year in Mrs. Wakefield’s class. She seemed to know exactly how hard to push me and how much to reward me so that I stayed confident, yet still humble enough to know that I have so much to learn. She has helped me with my writing more than anyone else in my entire life. After she armored me with confidence, knowledge and an open mind, I ran into Coach yet again. I took his English class this last summer at the Upward Bound Program. However, this time he seemed to enjoy my papers. He even kept my persuasive essay as a model for his eighth grade class.
After all of these influences and experiences, both good and bad, I now feel that I still have tons to learn, but I know that I can say what I want to through my writing.
