Where it All Began

I don't think I can honestly recount a time where I started writing. I know it must have been when I was very young, because I have always enjoyed it. I remember learning how to construct sentences and learning how to create an essay and how to write and all the spelling tests and the like, but I can't remember any particular essay or step to learning how to write until my sixth grade year. My first very serious paper was done for something my school called the Jr. Author's Fair. It was something that all the grades participated in. Basically, what happened was that everyone turned in some form of literature and everyone got to go around and comment on it. That was also when I discovered that I really did like to write and that I was at least somewhat good at it.

Later, in Jr. High, my writing abilities put me into honors classes and an honors reading class. I felt like I had learned a lot then too. But, when I got to Weber High, boy, was I in for a shock. My first teacher drilled us with our essay writing, we had a paper due every week; if not a paper, then a project. My second year English teacher was even harder. I soon realized that I had to do a lot more brainstorming and mapping out my thesis to a much more delicate degree. I didn't realize that I occasionally would get off topic or be repetitive in my essays until I had that class. All in all, I felt that it really prepared me for AP Literature the next year.

I learned so much from my lit. teacher, and I feel like I owe her a lot. She was very encouraging and had a lot of smart ideas for us to try out and use when writing our essays. She had a lot of different teaching methods, she would use imagery and lecture, have the students teach, and have us read examples constantly. One method she taught us to use for the AP Literature was something she called APE. A=assertion. P=proof. E=explanation. We ended up using this method quite a bit for our essays as a basis on how to start and where to go from there. I still sometimes use it to this day.

Since I had taken the AP Literature class I thought that college classes would be a breeze. Little did I know how much I still had to learn and am still learning. I want to become better with my writing in all aspects. I want for my essay writing to become better and I want to improve my free-hand writing that I do just for fun. Writing, for me, is a creative and constructive outlet that I want to be able to better all of my writing.