I was that really nerdy kid that hated homework. So, basically a big dork with big brown plastic glasses and long stringy hair. Oh yeah, I was THAT kid. But I loved reading, I just hated writing. So, I didn't. I talked a LOT, but not writing. But eventually my love for reading spilled over into me wanting to be a writer. It just kinda evolved that way. I wrote journals, I wrote my first short story when I was like 8 and I think it was about something grotesque, but I blame DOOM the videogame (which I played on my old dinosaur of a computer.That and Wolfenstein. haha.) The point is, I loved it. I wrote about everything, I narrated my life in song, as if I was in a perpetual musical. Big. Nerd.
But then just as I started feeling like I was getting enough tools to articulate what I had in my brain in an exceptional way, my teachers were like "hey! advanced English for you!" and away I went to write papers. And what happened? My creativity was sucked out! I took Creative Writing in HS and that was hard for me b/c I wasn't used to writing with "I " anymore, or saying anything without it being a formal, basic, boring paper. I think I defaulted to teenage angst, which, I am NOT looking forward to reading as a teacher. I was SO whiney, it's really pathetic, and quite embarassing. Ah, the embarassment of youth! Once I was a junior and they had us writing a research paper and I think that finalized the death of my suffering creativity. Gone. So, now? I struggle between finding my voice and being appropriate, and making sure that what I say can be understood. What do I do? I speak what I'm writing outloud as I write it. Oh yes, I'm doing that right now. If you do that, you'd be an insider with me. If you struggle to find your creativity, you're an insider with me. If you can rock the 5 paragraph essay, and bust out a research paper and be damn good at it, you're an insider with me. But if you're the writing master, who never had to conform to testing and school regulations, if you had creative schooling like Montessori school, or if you don't talk to yourself when you're reading/writing you are definitely an outsider.
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2 comments:
I guess that I can say I'm an insider with you. Secondary school sucked every ounce of creativity out of me! There were templates for papers and very, very specific topics we had to write about. No freedom! When we're at our peak of creativity, they completely took it away from us and just told us to summarize, summarize, summarize. When I got to college, I realized I had lost my voice too! When I finally had the opportunity to pick a paper topic myself, I had the hardest time with it! I guess an interesting topic would be how the way writing is taught in high school can negatively affect a student's literacy by taking away their individuality and character. You could talk about how being an insider in the high school English realm made you somewhat of an outsider when you got to college. I feel ya, girl!
Can't touch this....dum dum da dum
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