Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools Chapter 1

Establishing a writing environment (semi-autobiography)



In elementary school writing wasn’t an issue for me. I always had the ability to complete the writing task at hand. I enjoyed, and still do enjoy writing about personal things, and the less formal. Writing in a formal sense makes me feel like I have to get it one way, and if I don’t, then I didn’t do my job. In sixth grade we had a media class once a week. There was one time when I was writing on the computer and it caught the teacher’s eye. I was writing a poem about Martin Luther King. I assume that it was around his birthday, or maybe I wrote it during black history month. Anyway, she read the poem to herself out loud, and asked me if I wanted to read the poem at the next assembly. I ended up reading it at the next assembly, and it was a pretty good poem, well at least the audience thought so. My mom gave me a framed picture a year ago of me reading that poem. This moment was significant for me because it’s a point I can use to remember how writing played a memorable and positive part in my life. There was also a time in fifth grade when we were asked to write a DARE essay for the DARE program, which we were in. The best essay had the opportunity to be read in front of the whole school. I won and read the essay/speech in front of the school. I made my mom proud that day. Come to think of it, (I’m tooting my horn now), during the same year I read the MLK poem, my teacher asked me if I wanted to do a sixth grade graduation speech. I was excited about that. I spent so much time working on that speech, and with no help, I wrote it, recited it, and awed family and friends. I’m twenty two, and that was in sixth grade. I don’t even know if those abilities I had in sixth grade have enhanced, stayed the same, or maybe even declined.
In my high school years writing wasn’t the most fun thing to do. I never got to express myself through writing. It was always formal. I didn’t dread it, but I wasn’t excited about it. At times, college made me doubt my writing ability. In my first College English class, I remember that my first paper was about euphemisms. I worked real hard on that paper. I got a C on it. I didn’t really understand why. I got a B in the class overall though (: That C resembles how writing has been for me in that past four-five years. Besides my creative writing classes, I sometimes get unsure about my own writing abilities. I enjoy writing essays, and different forms of formal papers because I work hard on them, but sometimes I get lost in the process. I feel that I have to be concrete with my writing, but I end up being vague. Sometimes when I feel I’m vague or abstract, and I get to concrete? Balsingame, and Bushman talked about writing can become internalized through bad experiences. I’m far from being the best writer, but I do have some strong qualities. I also have some weak qualities. I don’t necessarily know what my weak qualities are. If I don’t know them, then it’s hard for me improve. I try to be self-reflective. I read the comments that instructors put on my assignments, but at times they can be intangible, and my specific flaws aren’t pinpointed. Of course I have had positive feedbacks on works that I’ve produced. I utilize those positives to produce better pieces for the next time. I don’t want a student to get a negative internalized feeling about their writing. I’ve learned so far that you have to find the positives in a persons writing. Use those positives to identify the errors, and improve on them.