1/19/2017

Sarah Nickles
ENGL 4850
1/19/2017

As a young writer, I viewed writing as deeply personal and never to be shared or discussed openly. Assignments were for the teacher's eyes only, and if given the opportunity to write in a more public forum, my language, style and tone had to be kept in constant check so as to elicit the ideal response. As I got older, my English major parents practically begged to edit my high school papers. I rejected this favor every time because of how embarrassing I imagined sharing my writing with "critics" would be. Not everything I wrote was a diary entry, but I saw writing as an extension of my thoughts, intellect and potential, exposed to the world. (And why wouldn't I think that if writing in high school is either a punishment or a graded assignment??). College finally helped me accept help from my parents, professors and peers as it became not only a requirement at times but a beneficial learning process. I have been pushed out of my comfort zone when asked to share writing but have seen the huge improvements in my own writing and collaborative skills as a result. Because of this, I hope to incorporate peer review and more casual writing assignments in my future classroom. For me, writing should not just be something done for a grade. I relate to Joan Didion's "Why I Write" in that I find it hard to accept being a "writer" without an explicit purpose other than to write, or to discover things I have yet to write. She ends her piece by saying she would have no reason to write if she had all the answers. I feel this is a healthy approach to writing in the classroom; writing should be exploratory and open-ended, not to be hindered by the remedial cycle of unmet standards described by Shaughnessy as part of "Guarding the Tower".
We already know the prevalence of writing in current students' lives on sites like Twitter or Facebook; I think honing in on the writing people often overlook could increase the value of the skill by making it more accessible. Personally, I write to remember or to reflect, or to entertain. I have a friend who keeps a notebook in which she scribbles down funny things she hears throughout the day. I write my goals and fears down, I write out my prayers, I write long angry emails that I immediately delete, I even write what I tell myself could be some amazing, profound short story or poem but ends up being one sentence. I spend too long composing Instagram captions or Facebook statuses. The content of this constant writing shifts based on the audience and the medium, and I honestly don't really know why I write most of it. Maybe for the likes? Maybe so I can remember the day 10 years down the line? Maybe to organize my thoughts? All I know is that writing for me ranges from random scribbled lists to extensively composed papers, with a million things between.