Learning from my past

Ink stained pages of my journal stare back at me. Who I am, who I was, thoughts and emotions almost forgotten but captured in words of my past. Journal entries and song lyrics, unrevised and raw as the emotion behind them. Free of scrutiny and hidden away in journals which rarely showed their innards to anyone but me. Little did I know, I was mapping my history as a writer. I was leaving footprints in the sand, unveiling my personal waltz through life, not as easily identifiable as "the grape vine" jig we learned in gym class.  It reminded me of what used to make me passionate about writing. Passion that has been somewhat hardened by letter grades and the roller coaster of confidence that I am on with my writing. Going back to my roots, going back to the fearlessness of my youth, and going back to having fun with writing is how I intend to find my inner self and my voice.

The above paragraph was a free write about my thoughts after looking through an old journal of mine full of poems and songs lyrics, even beginnings to short stories I never finished. Through composing my writing memory I realized certain themes in my life, but reading my old journal entries and poetry helped me remember certain themes in my writing. After taking time off from school, I have really struggled this semester with reimmersing myself in a fluid writing style, not just line by line chronological accounts of facts with no emotion and lacking content. From looking into my past as a writer, I am eager to reinvent my future as a writer. How? By remembering what inspires me to write and the forms of writing which I thoroughly enjoyed when I was younger. Writing poetry and song lyrics really helped my creative ideas flow, and I used to write poetry before beginning papers to play around with ways I could use my own voice to make my paper more interesting. I would write freely on my own time to unclutter all of my thoughts so I could make clear what I was trying to say when I had to write for a grade or for others to read. I also loved using metaphors and similes to make my papers more interesting, bridging the gaps in my writing, and creating more imagery to tie up loose ends in what I was trying to say. I had forgotten all of this and I am thankful for the reminder my journal has provided.

How does this apply to teaching writing? I see now the importance of looking back at what has shaped you as a writer. Whether it be digging out old papers you wrote for class, old journal entries, or just writing about memories you have of writing like we did in class; I think it is crucial to look at the past when shaping your future as a writer. This way you can remember what you enjoyed about writing, and see the progress you have made. It also is a reminder of what inspires you to write so you can call upon this inspiration when you feel stuck or in the grips of "writer's block". I also think free-writes and poetry are great tools for teaching writing. It gives students a chance to play around with vocabulary and syntax, also allowing them creative freedom in what they want to say and what emotions they may be feeling.

I will end with this line I really liked from the Walshe reading on Icon: "Product is what process makes it", which is true of us as writers too. The process we have gone through in developing our writing skills make up the product, or writer, that we are today.

One pagers and being enganging while still on topic

I had a very difficult time writing my one page autobiography. There was so much that I had to cut out to keep it at only one page and I was so worried about what was important to put in and leave out, that I actually stared at a blank word document for an hour. I finally decided to utilize Fletcher's bus theory about writing. I knew the final stop had to be a paper about me, but I wasn't sure  which (bus) route I would take. I just started typing and went with it. There was a lot of cropping and shifting as I went through the paper, but the end result I feel definitely sums up who I am as a writer. One page papers can be frustrating because you want to say more, but in the end I do feel like what I eliminated to meet the length restriction, were sentences that just added bulk and not content. That helped me remember the importance of keeping on point in a paper, and being able to spot areas that are lacking the "why I am writing this paper" factor. I also surprisingly learned a lot about myself in writing my autobiography. I was forced to remember my thoughts about a certain life experience, and I realized different themes that have always been a part of my life, how strange I didn't see them before.

I am sure you all can relate, but I feel like I have written a ridiculous amount of papers this first month of school. How do you keep the creative juices flowing while also staying on topic? I don't want to to put my readers to sleep, but I also don't want them to wonder what point I was trying to make at the end of it. This skill will be something I want to stress when teaching, I just want to make sure I
understand it first.

Additional comment after having class tonight: So I have to add this to my post, silly me, I misunderstood and thought the assignment was supposed to be one page. After class tonight I now know our end result will be a 5-8 page essay with 3-5 pages of commentary... this puts a whole new spin on things! I do, however, feel pretty good after discussing in small groups tonight. The advice and ideas that were tossed around definitely have my creative wheels spinning again.

My First Blog

I must start out my very first blog with admitting that it is my first blog, and I have never actually been on a blog website before. This a cool new experience for me but also a little nerve-racking. I love to write; I love the way it allows me to communicate my thoughts and ideas more clearly than verbal communication, but I am also very shy about my writing. I wrote poetry all the time throughout my adolescent years to sort of work out how I felt about a situation, but I have shown only a of few of these poems to very few people. Over the years the school the papers I have written were viewed only by myself and my teacher, at least for the most part, so posting this for my peers to review and react makes me apprehensive. 

I wanted to comment on the blog we read from a former student last class. I agreed when he questioned his ability to teach something such as writing, since he feels he has a lack of valuable knowledge to pass on to impressionable students. I feel the same way. I am still trying to find my niche as a student, how then will I ever feel I have the ability to teach. I believe it was Frank McCourt in Inventing the Truth, who spoke about how he continued to learn from his own students while he was a teacher. I think that's very true no matter how knowledable you are, or how prepared you you are for anything in life, there is still something to be learned about what you are doing. That being said, it takes a little pressure off my shoulders in feeling like I must know everything before I can begin to teach.