Art of Persuasion

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Developing a Writer (1st Paper 1st Draft)

My younger brother, T.J., was told he was an “excellent” writer in the third grade, and I was (and still am) envious because I wasn’t told I was a good writer until I was a high school senior.  He wrote a ridiculous but creative, short story about the superhero Captain Underpants defeating the antagonist Mr. Pot and ultimately preserved universal harmony.  T.J. and I went to the same elementary school, but he had a different third grade teacher than me.  His teacher, Mrs. Jursaw, was renowned for consistently engaging and encouraging her students through creative academic activities.  My third grade teacher’s typical mundane methods were of no significance to remember.  I had learned writing in an orthodox manner and consciously viewed it as a monotonous chore.  My writing did not evolve into innovative material until Ms. Smith came along my final year at Dakota Ridge High School.

            Ms. Smith questioned, challenged, and altered her senior classes’ cookie-cutter composition skills.  She expanded the standards of the common, five-paragraph essay: an introduction with the thesis, body paragraphs with supportive examples, and a conclusion with summary points.  She questioned her students’ writing and expected thorough, personal, philosophical explanations that gave insight to individual opinion and voice.  Religiously every class, the students immersed themselves in varied writing activities similar to free writes.  One class, I had to select from a pile of rectangular cards; these cards had squares filled-in with solid color and a descriptive name of that color.  (These cards can be found at Home Depot-type stores and are used by shoppers to discover options for home-decor paint.)  Then, I was instructed to write anything about this color for ten minutes.  This free write, along with the countless others, forced me to assemble the skill of getting down ideas articulately and practice uninterrupted.

“Practice makes perfect.”  As much as I hate this overused, trite quote, it truly means practicing skills will assist and eventually develop an apprentice into a more seasoned craftsman.  The everyday practice of writing prepared me to write more intricate, longer pieces.  Instructors definitely need to implement everyday writing in their teaching plan, especially in innovative ways to aid students in wanting to partake and establish strong writing skills. The renowned scholar Peter Elbow would heavily agree with teachers employing the free write activities.  In Elbow’s book Writing Without Teachers, he wrote “The most effective way I know how to improve your writing is to do freewriting exercises regularly” (3).  Personally, free write activities improved my writing.  Academically, schools upholds such expectations of qualifiedly, scholarly writing from its students, and if the teacher does not set aside classroom time for the students to practice their writing skills, then the students are not positioned to succeed.  It is in extreme correlation to sport.  My softball coach would not be able to expect her players to be able to hit the ball well without concentrated, focused practice of the fundamentals needed to perform the action of hitting.  Practice may become repetitious, but there are different drills that can be used to progress and sustain the fundamental skills.  Writing needs to be practiced frequently and in creative ways to keep students interested.  Teachers need to guide students in such writing activities.

Ms. Smith led her classroom to have active participation through the sharing of writing.  Some brave souls would read aloud their free writes to the classroom, and I even had the courage show the class one of my early drafts on the overhead.  My classmates critiqued my style and content.  I received suggestions on sections that needed improvement and discovered concepts that could be expanded.  The positive feedback was most encouraging.  This peer review directed by Ms. Smith facilitated the improvement of my writing.  I realized how to evaluate my writing and analyze classmates’ works as well.  Work-shopping students’ written material will allow for progression towards finishing a well-edited piece— not only in regards to the conventions but in subject matter.  Furthermore, Ms. Smith did not even restrict her students grammatically.  I was permitted to play with writing conventions.  For example, italicizing, bolding, and capitalizing all the letters of a certain word to create emphasis were acceptable to Ms. Smith’s grading scale.  I loved being able to use an ellipse every now and then too.  Once a student understands grammar rules… he or she should be able to circumstantially break the academic rules.  [Sometimes breaking the rules (in writing) can be fun.] 

 Eventually Ms. Smith’s class became a comfortable, inviting, fun place to share writing and discuss ideas in Socratic fashion.  Our classroom discussions— sometimes including civil disagreement- were enjoyable, intriguing, and enlightening.  My perspective was wiped clean of most stereotypical ways of understanding text and writing.  Ms. Smith challenged our classroom to view universal-applied, life themes non-conventionally.  She wanted us to propose scholarly writing creatively.  We wrote papers that interpreted classical readings (i.e. Shakespeare’s Hamlet), exposed underlying meaning, and defined words in terms specific to our individuality.  These pondering questions brought up during class enhanced the students’ connection to the books that have been placed on an exalted pedestal.  Writing scholar David Bartholomae highly encourages the involvement of classical readings.  In his Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow, he wrote “students (more precisely, with lessons in critical reading) can learn to feel and see their position inside a text” (65).  I know I benefited from evaluating the text in these classroom discussions.   These discussions definitely impress new viewpoints on students about the readings and possibilities for writing.

Ms. Smith instilled great confidence in my academic writing abilities, and she is the reason why I have decided to become a high school English teacher.  I wish to implement her creative ways as my teaching strategy.  I want to be the teacher that shows her students their potential.  Hopefully, my future students will adopt the fundamental writing and reading skills that I was taught.  Truly, I desire for my students to achieve the basic writing ability, surpass the academy’s writing standards, and create outstanding literary work.  I know that grammatical freedom may liberate some of my future writing student’s inner voice and class discussion elucidate the text better.  I understand that my dream may sound unrealistic because there are students that would rather liberate themselves by indulging in animalistic rituals than by writing, but if I impact some students the way Ms. Smith impacted my infrastructural being, than there is no predicting some students’ capabilities.