My Relationship With Writing

Let me tell you about my life as an 11 year old girl in the fifth grade. I hated school, I hated my teachers and I basically went to school to hang out with my friends. Homework was not my thing, but I did it anyways. My worst subjects were math and English, math was never something I enjoyed but English was another level of complicated for me. Writing wasn’t always my strongest area. It took me a while to grow confidence in my writing and that wasn’t an easy journey for me.

Looking back now I realized elementary school was a breeze but as a fifth grader I didn’t seem to think so, especially when it came to English class. My English teacher was determined to prepare us for middle school, so he would give us challenging books to read and write about. Now of course not every writing assignment was the same, there were essays that I enjoyed writing and others that I dreaded. I can’t seem to remember any specific writing assignments that I loved or hated but I do remember this one essay I had to write for English class. It was actually an interesting topic on how life would be if I were a famous and what I would do with all the money I had, sounds pretty easy right? Well I thought it was too easy and I waited last minute and wrote the essay the very night before. The next morning I turned my essay in confidently not knowing the harsh feedback that I would later receive.

“This essay wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the best. I know this isn’t like the other essays we write in class but I do expect you to treat this like any other essay, next time I want to see more effort in your writing and in your thoughts”, said my fifth grade teacher Mr. Clark with  disappointment written all over his face.

 Mr. Clark called my mother that night to tell her about my slacking in his class and that I needed to take his class more seriously. I walked into my room when I arrived at home and as I went to hug my mother I saw the look on her face. I swear I saw steam leave my mothers ears as she shouted at me from the other side of the room. I was a sensitive kid so of course I started crying, telling her how sorry I was. My mother watched me weep and she left the room and waited for me to calm down. Now of course I don’t remember my mother’s exact words but I do remember her coming back into my room and I could tell she wasn’t as upset anymore. I tried explaining to her that I hated writing, I wanted no part of it and that’s what no one understood. Mothers always give you that “You can do anything you put your mind to” speech, but my mother didn’t do that. She simply told me that if I didn’t like writing it was okay.  

“You may not like writing but it is something you’re going to be doing for years as a student so you might as well get used to it,” she explained while still trying to comfort me.  

Now these words I do remember because she still says them to me, I carried those words through my high school years.   

Now let us fast forward into 10th grade, this was the year I took my first AP class, English Language and Composition. I was determined to improve my reading skills but most importantly my writing skills. My AP teacher was a mean old woman who I swore hated me. Even though she acted like she hated all of us, she still was there for her students when they needed her help. There was this one assignment where we wrote a paper on a specific topic that we have been researching for a week. It was based on problems we wanted to change in our society and I chose teen health, most importantly teen pregnancies. I wrote what I thought was an excellent paper but according to my teacher it was “average” and “boring”. My teacher noticed I was upset with her and she asked me to stay after class, I wanted to know what was missing from my paper and why did I think it was perfect when she didn’t? This was like a research paper because of all the statistics and articles I had to include but I failed to include my own analysis on everything that I have read. I was confused, I felt that putting your all into a paper involves getting personal. This teacher taught me that I wasn’t a bad writer I just didn’t know when and where my voice is a needed or how to express myself in a way that won’t throw off the entire paper. She showed me how use my voice when it is needed and showed me that in some cases, emotion is necessary. A lot of essays are simple and it only gets complicated if you make it complicated.  

You probably thought this was going to be a happy ending about how at first I struggled with writing but then I came to actually love it. Well let me tell you one of things I have learned throughout this journey, I don’t need to love writing. I have to write because I am a student and that is what’s required of me and I definitely will try my very best, but I don’t have to like it. That is the problem with our youth these days, adults are teaching these kids that they need to like everything they have to do, like going to school. Personally I’m not a writer and I’m perfectly fine with that, I write when I need to and nothing more. Just like what my mother taught me from a young age, I  have to do what I have to do if I want to be successful, I’ll keep doing my best and I should be just fine.