Memo #1: Exploratory Writing

For a few years, I had a chip on my shoulder about writing in school.  When I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher required us to write in journals every day in class.  At the end of the week, what we had written was graded and turned back to us.  My teacher would critique our grammar, vocabulary, and the over-all content of our daily writing assignments.  Before this assignment, I had a love for creative writing and would do it quite often.  During that class and in the following years, my love for writing all but evaporated.  This assignment left a bad taste in my mouth and it affected my feelings for writing until my freshman year of college when I grew to love writing again.  I know that no two stories are the same.  Some people have loved writing since the first day they picked up a pencil and squiggled lines on a piece of paper (or, in my case, my mom's cook books).  Some have never liked writing.  Others have no strong feelings either way so they hold a more neutral view on the subject.

 

This topic is very important to me for many reasons.  First of all, it is interesting to discover how others feel about writing and why they have those feelings.  Secondly, I would like to find a way to incorporate what I learn into my future classrooms.  There are so many different approaches to teaching writing.  If I can figure out how students feel about writing, my teaching methods and assignments can be geared for my students.  I can learn other stories like my own and find creative ways to avoid these unfortunate experiences with my students.  I will be more confident while creating lesson plans that deal with writing because I will have a better grasp on what assignments will help my students become proficient in this art form.  This topic should be important to every single person in the field of education.  If the voices of the students are never heard, educators will never know how to cater to individuals--this is the most important aspect of teaching.