The last bell of the day rang seconds after I finished sharing my poem aloud to the class. I stood amid the scrambling of hands putting their notebooks into their backpacks, among the shouts across class, “Wait for me so we can sit together on the bus!”, and amidst the shoving of twenty bodies moving toward one door. I crumpled my poem and threw it into the trashcan on the way out of class. Well, that was entirely anticlimactic, I thought, even more than I previously imagined it would be.
The twinge of growing pains became my muse of introspection. To find yourself at all in your early years of life is success but to make an artform of it is a mystery. Like most ordinary children in early 2000s, when technology had no reign, reading was my
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By joining the school newspaper staff during freshman year, I fell into a rut as a writer. The principal controlled what the school newspaper wrote and gave no free range to the staff writers. Thus, I wrote articles which were lead with another person’s ideas and passions. I eventually quit the school newspaper my sophomore year. That led to my stance on who I wanted to write for. I realized that writing is for my fulfillment and should not be based upon the reactions or reviews of others. Writing became therapeutic medicine that no other person, novel or thing could give …show more content…
I became a contributing writer for a local, female magazine called Eye Candy. The experience of writing my own piece, emailing it to the editor and seeing the final product in color print brought a huge joy compared to my past limitations. I truly thrived in finding what I could write boldly about, which in this case, was mainly personal favorites such as film or music selections:
… A sliver of finding myself in high school has been heavily invested in the film Men, Women and Children. There is absolutely no other movie that I find myself identifying “our generation” with. From the mention of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, the overall complexity of being controlled by our technology (i.e. the unlimited possibilities within WebSpace) and the independent struggles that each person goes through under the surface. The featured quote lined the head of the DVD cover: “Discover how little you know about the people you know.”
Most people discover a profound passion for something following their education or experience with that subject. Dr. Greer, however, found her passion for journalism long before taking any journalism-related classes. “I, along with a friend, produced a magazine for the neighborhood when I was 8 years old,” says Greer as a brief expression of nostalgia flickers across her face. Greer remembers, “I always watched the show about Lou Grant’s newspaper, and I thought the news room looked like fun.” Dr. Greer says that the appearance of the day-to-day, chaotic, exciting newspaper business inspired her to create, by hand, a newsletter of her own which she delivered to the neighborhood families. By the time Dr. Greer had entered middle school, her writing skills were superior to others her age. “In the fifth grade, I wrote an essay about why I wanted to be a journalist,” Dr. Greer explains. “My teacher commented on how good I could write and encouraged me to follow my drea...
After my successful college years, I became a well-known writer, poet, and teacher. My inspiration for writing came from the times that I lived through, mostly from the major social changes that were happening in the US from the 1950’s to the 1970’s.
Often I sit at the computer, or with a pen and paper, and I think about what I should write. I reflect on my experiences with life, or with my feelings and emotions. If the subject that I write about is coming from my heart, I could write forever, opposed to something that I do not have interest in like the mating habits of fireflies. I don’t care about how, when, and much less why they procreate. I would always dread having to write a paper for my English class, and it was not until I discovered my own love for poetry that I began to enjoy writing. It was my junior English teacher in San Diego, Howard Estes. He allowed me to open my mind to not only the academic perspective of literature, but also to my own personal connection to this confusing written language. This newfound passion gave me a sort of sixth sense. When I look at something, I not only think about what it means to me, but what it means to the world on a larger scale as opposed to taking everything at face value. Through my own writings, and the writings of others, I have been shaped as a unique individual.
As the semester finally approaches the finish line, I revisit my past work to compare and contrast how this class has developed me into a successful writer at the college level. Throughout the year my writing style has developed and become broader as I have learned how to incorporate more of my personal views as well as reliable, unbiased information. This portfolio is a representation of how many things I have learned along the way while being an English 102 student.
Choosing a topic or finding the inspiration for material is the first step for writing an essay, book, article, blog, or any other form of written matter, and this step can often be the most difficult. Where do these ideas come from? Do they appear from thin air or does a higher power intervene, bestowing these lightning strikes of inspiration only on those deemed worthy? Does the writer do something to help themselves find inspiration and these beginnings? Michael Smith writes, “Beginnings don’t just occur. Beginnings have to be coaxed. They have to be lured and tricked and seduced. Or they have to be wrestled into submission, bludgeoned until they beg for mercy. They get dropped in the gutter, kicked to the curb, thrown out with the bathwater. And they get rescued, revisited, revised and revivified” (66). The process of writing can be almost painful for many individuals. Amongst college students, lack of inspiration and the struggle to find something meaningful to write about is often cited as a source of writing related stress. By examining where professional writers, both fiction and nonfiction, derived their inspiration, it is clear that most often inspiration is found in personal experiences, and may hold a key in helping college students find inspiration for their own works.
What experiences molded me into the writer that I am today? Growing up as an Army Brat, My father was a sergeant major in the United States Army, and we followed him whenever he changed duty stations. I had three different High Schools in three different states: Wisconsin, Colorado, and Texas in three years. The sad part of that was that we never were able to transfer during the summer breaks, so most of the time I had to play catch up with my classes, or I had to take classes just to make the state’s requirement for that particular grade. Of course, I had those High School teachers back then that tried to prepare me for college by having me write long essays and book reports. Oh yes, that was long before computers and Microsoft office,
During the first few days of orientation and quest, I kept hearing the unfamiliar word, "vocation." As the discussions continued and examples were provided, I began to develop an understanding for the concept and think of what it could mean for me. Ever since I can recall, I have inhabited an interest in writing as a creative avenue to share my thoughts and perspective. Abiding by this inclination, I developed my passion through taking advanced writing and journalism courses. Because of this, I spent middle school and high school thinking that I would be a journalist. However, through conversations with experts and people I respect, I realized my desire to use my writing abilities for another avenue. With a major of Organizational Communications,
This is my third full semester in school and over that short span of time, I have come to recall and recognize that I have other areas of interest which also play off my creative characteristics; I take pleasure in writing and I emphatically enjoy an enthralling fictional...
Throughout the year there have been many ups and downs, mistakes, and accomplishments. Because of these events people can grow as writers and can learn more about the world around them through this media. Over the year I have shown that I have been on both sides of the spectrum of great to unorthodox.
...from high school with high hopes that college would add the finishing touches to my writing skills – I knew I still had flaws in my style, and I didn’t know how to fix them. And now here I am, aiming to become a successful novelist or screenwriter of some sort (as long as it allows my imagination to run wild).
“I believe that I’m at least competent as a writer as I can usually fluidly express ideas, but those technical skills will be even further crucial once I enter college and the adult world. The sooner I can learn these skills to better my writing, the better prepared I’ll be for any writing situation I find myself in the future.” When I entered the class of Front Range Composition on January 10th, I was armed only with my expectations of what I hoped to learn and the basic writing knowledge I had gained from other classes. Writing had never been my strong suit in my academic years, but I was capable enough to work my way through and still pull off an A in the class. Not this class.
I soon began writing for the campus radio station, one of the magazines on campus, all while photographing for all the outlets. Now, while still dedicated to those outlets, I’ve taken more classes to improve my writing even further. I’ve also been consistently seeking valuable opportunities to expand my experience in the fields of journalism and
Storytelling is my passion. One moment I was reading stories, the next I was writing them. Everything from the smell of fried foods at the fair to a loud conversation at the dinner table inspired new stories. After years of scribbling in notebooks, I started my first cohesive story and told my dad I was going to be a writer. At first, he was supportive, but after a while, he told me the only way I’d ever be able to earn enough to make a living and write at the same time is becoming a journalist.
Writing has always been a natural ability of mine. Over the course of the past decade, a writing journey has taken me to where I am now; it has taken me to the start of an exceptional career that I wish to pursue. The career that I’m implying is sports journalism. Becoming a sports journalist has been a dream job for myself ever since I entered high school; however, my love of writing began years before now. From reading elementary sports novels by Matt Christopher and writing fictional sports stories as a kid, to eventually writing for the school newspaper this year, writing has been a momentous personal journey for me that has resulted in forming my career goal.
I also began to look deeper into how my language and attitude can affect writers in their motivation and general perception of writing. For example, I became more aware of my privilege when learning about my writers’ upbringing in the education system. I quickly realized how fortunate I was to have such great English teachers in junior high and high school because they prepared me for college, unlike some of my