Introduction

When the question, “what is writing?” comes up, there is usually more than one answer, but in reality, writing can be anything the author wants it to be. It can be an epic adventure to far away lands or a narrative of the history of the panda bear. Writing is whatever the author wants to do with his or her words, ideas, and passions. All writings are unique because of the different styles that every author uses. Personally, I am a better author when my work can be done in an informal manner; I do not see a need to make things sound fancy and proper. In my opinion, society as a whole has pretty shitty grammar. For example, do you know how many people probably do not know the difference between their and there? I have encountered so many college students that still cannot tell when the appropriate time to use there or their. I like to write as if I was talking to the reader in person; as if what I am writing is not a prompt or a midterm, but rather a story or a conversation I was having with the person. So, personally, these three pieces are my favorite; they are stories from my past, not just random prompts I had to complete.

            The three pieces I chose are the description of my writing history throughout my writing career. I start with an encounter with some weird kids one summer and a wonderful paper for a hardcore republican, then journey to my junior and the writing advice I received from my English teacher that I used to kick ass that quarter, and finally, my childhood memory of destruction and action. I did not choose them because they were good or well written or easy to proofread or something; I chose them because it was easy to write something. For me, this is not a normal thing; writing has always been a struggle. I never sat down to write a paper and felt confidence in my ability to finish my assignment quickly; writing is not and has never been that natural for me. These pieces were different; for starters, I was able to finish them all relatively quickly and I enjoyed writing them. I think that it was so easy because I felt like the audience could enjoy or relate to my pieces. Although I enjoyed writing these and I personally think they are good, they could use some work. By no means are they perfect; there are probably grammatical errors or sentences that are awkwardly written, but that is what I am trying to work on in this class. I normally write something and then never return back to it; I normally would never go back to re-read it or make any type of edits. I never saw the point of trying to make my writing perfect, I mean it is not something that could go in a newspaper or win a Pulitzer, but I kind of realized my work deserves to be reread. I wrote excerpts from my life and I felt as if I did something different with them, I felt more passionate about my work. I think that that is the most important part of writing, being proud of something that you have written. And for one of the few times in my life, I really am proud at what I wrote.

Developed prompts

Week 1

Writing has never been a strong point in my schooling career. I was never creative enough to write stories or poems and it has always been a struggle for me to push out five pages for a research report on a topic that I could care less about. I would not say I am bad at writing, just not the best at it. I think writing is a great way to express not only yourself, but also your ideas and is a staple in any learning environment.

Since I was not the best writer in middle school, my parents thought that it would be a good idea to go and take a summer course on writing before high school. Ok, great, sounds like a blast. Although I was not very excited about going, I tried to stay positive and convinced myself that it would help me in the long run. I got to the first day of class on that hot June morning and the instructor begins to do her welcome and talk about the class. Turns out that it was not a class that helped teach writing; it was a class for kids who liked to write and wanted to get together with other kids and take a week out of their beautiful summer to write about dragons and zombies and shit. Nope, not having any of that. Although it was a miserable week, (due to it being one of the nicest weeks of the summer) with a bunch of weirdoes who love to write, it did help in the long run. I did get better at writing from all the feedback and tips I had received from the class.

Writing in during my high school years could be considered sub-par. I had to do the normal papers for English, essays for history tests, and some writing here or there for a science course. Then sophomore year, for my US History II class, I had to write an end of the year research paper. My teacher, Mrs. Donnegan, said to have fun with it and choose who you think had an effect on history from 1940 to present day. Having no idea what to do, I went to Barnes and Nobles hoping for some sort of divine intervention on who to write about. After about a half hour of searching every isle, I saw the answer to all my problems sitting on the shelf. There, with his shining face, was former President George W. Bush’s book Decision Points. Although I do not sway towards either party, Mrs. Donnegan did; hardcore Republican to be exact. Although I only finished half the book, I wrote a kickass essay filled with lots of knowledge on 9/11 and his early life followed by two pages of utter bullshit wrapping things up. I got a 98 on it. Is it that it was well written or that I chose someone my teacher liked? Probably the latter, but I think I did so well on the paper because it was something that interested me. The part of the book that I had actually read was great and it kept me involved in the book. As Vonnegut said in our week 1 writing assignment, write about something that interests you. This rings true even though I did not even know it at the time of writing it.

Week 3a

Now I hope you are confused from the title. No I did not actually kill a nice couple, but I thought that I did. It was a warm summer night when I was 12 or 13 and my friend, Matt, and I were absolutely ecstatic. Matt's older brother had just gotten back from a trip to Pennsylvania with something of ours: a shit ton of fireworks. We had Roman candles, sparklers, M-80s, mortars, etc. But the one thing that stuck out was the Veni Vidi Vici, a 30 shot mortar brick of pure fun and danger. We decided to walk down to the beach a few blocks from our houses to set it off. We live in Central Jersey on the shore (yes by where Jersey Shore is) so the beach was safest place for fireworks in the area. Or so we thought. It was nice out, so, there were a few people out on the beach. And boy were they in for a show. We walked about halfway down the beach, plopped the thing down and lit it. We start backing up to get away from our masterpiece and to watch it. One shot goes off in a nice green firework; the next is purple. They looked like the nice fireworks you would see on the 4th of July; it was basically something that a small town could use for fireworks if they wanted. So, instead of a nice 3rd shot going off, we see a huge flash of light and a deafening bang. It exploded. The thing fucking exploded. I do not think we could have run any faster to get away from the scene of the crime. We get back to our houses and try and piece together what had just happened. After about a half hour or so, we decided to walk back down to the beach to see the damage. When we got there, we were surprised at the magnitude of what happened. Three fire trucks, five police cars, an ambulance and a SWAT car were sitting right where we left the fireworks. I did not even know our town had a SWAT car. So we did what any two good natured kids would do and turned right around and got home as fast as we could. After a long sleepless night of guilt, we grabbed some breakfast and went back to the beach. Where our mortar brick once sat was a 4ft crater with black, charred sand all around it. We talked to one of the cops that was passing by and asked him what happened. He said two kids lit off fireworks last night and it blew up, but thankfully no one was hurt. We were more than relieved to hear there would be no legal issues nor any guilt for seriously injuring an innocent bystander. After this incident, we decided to not use the fireworks for a while and not tell anyone about what happened because the imminent fear of jail.  

Week 3b

There is one word that can describe the entire epic story that is my career of high school writing: bullshit. I am not a good writer; I am a good bullshitter. I always liked my English teachers, but nothing they said really stuck with me. You always heard “re-read your work” or “make sure you always make outlines before papers”. I personally did not do any of those things. But one teacher really did give me advice that has stuck with me, my junior English teacher at Red Bank High School, Mrs. S. Mrs. S was a wonderful little Italian lady, very nice, always helpful, interesting teacher. The class was British Literature so there is that, no real complaints. The first big assignment we had was a 5-page descriptive analysis on the epic poem Beowulf. When the project was presented, Mrs. S said that this was not a paper you can do the night before. Being the cocky, procrastinator I am, challenge accepted. The night before the paper was due I was up until the wee hour of 4 A.M. completing it. Not the best idea, but I got it done. When we got the grades back, I received an 82. Ok that works for doing the whole thing the night before. After class ended, Mrs. S called me back in to talk. We were the only two in the large empty classroom. We had a conversation about the work and how I had messed up simple details like misspelling Beowulf at points or confusing major character's names. I told her truth and she said she was disappointed and used some explicit language. During this talk, her young son had walked over from our middle school. This was hilarious because she did not realize it. We all had a good laugh when she did see him in the room. Her advice was to take my time when I write and to not try and bullshit papers. She said to find an aspect of the topic that interested me and try and focus that.

            The year continued to go on and I continued to write more papers. I thought that the papers would just magically get easier to write and would be better and I would get A+’s on every paper that I graced with my fantastic writing. Sadly, this was not the case. But I had more and more papers to write, so, I tried to put my newfound advice into them. The next paper I had to write was on A Tale of Two Cities. I did not really like the book; the end was kind of entertaining, but it just dragged on. Our final essay on the book was to choose from a series of prompts and write 5-pages on it. I decide to choose a character analysis essay. I thought about which character I should write about; it was easy to write about someone like Carton or Darnay but I thought it would be fun to try something out of the box. I ended up going with writing about Lucie Manette. I wrote about how she positively affected the growth of Dr. Manette and Carton throughout the course of the book. At about 3 and a half pages, I ran out of things to write about. I started to go back through the book to find anything stupid or useless that I could use as filler. But then Mrs. S’s words echoed in my head. I thought about what I could write about that wasn’t complete bullshit. So, I decided to write about how Lucie actually ended up screwing everyone over through the course of the book. It could be argued that it was not actually her fault; she was just doing her own things and loving whom she wanted to love. The paper still took me until approximately 1 A.M. the night before it was due, but I felt a lot more confident when I handed the paper in. I got an 88, so I mean I guess that is an improvement. As I was looking over the essay as to what I got wrong, I saw a little note that Mrs. S had written there. She said she liked my opinion on Lucie even if it was not the most positive; it was still something outside of the box, which she was proud of. All in all, I believe that Mrs. S gave me something that most teachers do not, she gave me confidence and her real opinions and I could not be more thankful.

R/W responses

Week 1

Vonnegut's article was advice that any writer, good or bad, can use to help improve their work. The two things that really stuck out for me in the article were to find a subject you care about and to sound like yourself. It is always much easier to be able to write about something that you care about or are interested in. If you care about something, it will be much easier to write something more meaningful and compelling to read. As Vonnegut says you will be able to use your emotion and not any super compelling language to get your point across. It also does not matter the length it can be as small as a petition or as long as a novel, as long as it is something you care about.

The other point to sound like yourself is also something I took to heart because I often find myself writing and trying to write something that the reader wants to hear. It is better to write how you want to because its the best way you will be able to get your point across because its your own words. Though I only wrote about these two points, I do think that everything Vonnegut wrote about can help you improve. The only reason I can think of to why he wrote this is, as other people have mentioned, to help people write better. Vonnegut is a very successful write whose advice can help anyone improve.

Week 2

Orwell organizes his essay chronologically throughout his life and his career as a writer. He goes through each major event in his life and talks about how it shaped him as a writer. By including this information, Orwell can help his readers relate to what was going on in the world at the time of the writings. I believe he spends more time discussing certain events but some event might have had more of an impact on his life than others. Orwell said he wanted to turn political writing into an art. He fully discloses his political standpoint through his various writings but that does not necessarily tarnish his writings. The only early experience that I have really brought through life is my desire to build things. Being a civil engineer, my career will be to build new structures, something I have been doing with toys since I was a kid.

Week 3

The section of writing that was most valuable to me was section 3: The Little Green Ball. Whenever I write, I always struggle to go into detail and when I do it is still very vague. Reid really showed how important details are with the example with her class. She told everyone to close their eyes and then with their hands make what they think the size of the small green ball would be. When the class opens their eyes, they see that every one has a different idea of how small the ball will be. Everyone can interpret something differently without detail. This goes for writing also; if you are vague with your detail people will interpret your writing differently. Reid also gave the advice to take your sentences or ideas and give them as much detail as you can think of to better get your point across.

All prompts

Week 1

Writing was never the strongest point in my schooling career. I was never creative enough to really write stories or poems and it has always been a struggle to push out five pages for a research report on something that I really could care less about. I would not say I am bad at writing, just not the best at it. I think writing is a great way to express not only yourself but also your ideas and is a staple in any learning environment.

 Since I was not the best writer in middle school, my parents thought that it would be a good idea to go and take a summer course on writing before high school. Ok great awesome sounds like a blast. Although I was not very excited about going, I tried to stay positive that it would help me in the long run. I get to class on the first day and the instructor begins to do her welcome and talk about the class. Turns out that it was not a class that helped teach writing; it was a class for kids who liked to write that wanted to get together with other kids and take a week out of their summer and write about dragons and zombies and shit. Nope, not having any of that. Although it was a miserable week with a bunch of weirdos who love to right, it did help in the long run. I did get better at writing from all the feedback and tips I had received from the class.  

Week 2

There is one word that can describe my entire career of high school writing: bullshit. I am not a good writer; I am a good bullshitter. I always liked my English teachers, but nothing they said really stuck with me. You always heard “re-read your work” or “make sure you always make outlines before papers”. I personally did not do any of those things. But one teacher really did give me advice that has stuck with me, my junior English teacher Mrs. S. Mrs. S was a wonderful lady, very nice always helpful, interesting teacher. The class was British Literature so there is that, no real complaints. The first big assignment we had was a 5-page paper on Beowulf. When the project was presented, Mrs. S said that this was not a paper you can do the night before. Being the cocky, procrastinator I am, challenge accepted. The night before the paper was due I was up till 4 A.M. completing it. Not the best idea, but I got it done. When we got the grades back, I received an 82. Ok that works for doing the whole thing the night before. After class ended, Mrs. S called me back in to talk. We had a conversation about the work and how I had messed up simple details from the book. I told her truth and she said it was disappointed and used some explicit language, which was hilarious because her young son was in the room but she didn’t realize. Her advice was to take my time when I write and to not try and bullshit papers. She said to find an aspect of the topic that interested me and try and focus that.

Week 3a

Now I hope you are confused from the title. No I did not actually kill a nice couple, but I thought that I did. It was a warm summer night when I was 12 or 13 and my friend, Matt, and I were absolutely ecstatic. Matt's older brother had just gotten back from a trip to Pennsylvania with something of ours: a shit ton of fireworks. We had Roman candles, sparklers, M-80s, mortars, etc. But the one thing that stuck out was the Veni Vidi Vici, a 30 shot mortar brick of pure fun and danger. We decided to walk down to the beach a few blocks from our houses to set it off. It was nice out so there were a few people out on the beach. And boy were they in for a show. We walked about halfway down the beach, plopped the thing down and lite it. We start backing up to get away from our masterpiece and watch it. One shot goes off in a nice green firework; the next is purple. They looked like nice fireworks you see on 4th of July; it was basically something that a small town could use for fireworks if they wanted. So instead of a nice 3rd shot goes off; we see a huge flash of light and a deafening bang. It exploded. The thing fucking exploded. I do not think we could have run any faster away. We get back to our houses and try and piece together what the fuck just happened. After about a half hour or so, we decided to walk back down to the beach to see the damage. When we got there, we were surprised at the magnitude of what happened. 3 firetrucks, 5 police cars, an ambulance and a SWAT car. I did not even know our town had a SWAT car. So we did what any two good natured kids would do and turned right around and got home as fast as we could. After a long sleepless night of guilt, we grabbed some breakfast and went back to the beach. Where our mortar brick once sat was a 4ft crater with black, charred sand all around it. We talked to one of the cops that was passing by and asked him what happened. He said two kids lite off fireworks last night and it blew up but thankfully no one was hurt. So great awesome good; no legal trouble and did not kill anyone. So we decided to not use the fireworks for awhile and not tell anyone about what happened because fuck jail.  

Week 3b

There is one word that can describe the entire epic story that is my career of high school writing: bullshit. I am not a good writer; I am a good bullshitter. I always liked my English teachers, but nothing they said really stuck with me. You always heard “re-read your work” or “make sure you always make outlines before papers”. I personally did not do any of those things. But one teacher really did give me advice that has stuck with me, my junior English teacher at Red Bank High School, Mrs. S. Mrs. S was a wonderful little Italian lady, very nice always helpful, interesting teacher. The class was British Literature so there is that, no real complaints. The first big assignment we had was a 5-page descriptive analysis on the epic poem Beowulf. When the project was presented, Mrs. S said that this was not a paper you can do the night before. Being the cocky, procrastinator I am, challenge accepted. The night before the paper was due I was up until the wee hour of 4 A.M. completing it. Not the best idea, but I got it done. When we got the grades back, I received an 82. Ok that works for doing the whole thing the night before. After class ended, Mrs. S called me back in to talk. We were the only two in the large empty classroom. We had a conversation about the work and how I had messed up simple details like misspelling Beowulf at points or confusing major character's names. I told her truth and she said she was disappointed and used some explicit language. During this talk her young son had walked over from our middle school since it was the end of the day. This was hilarious because she did not realize it. We all had a good laugh when she did see him in the room. Her advice was to take my time when I write and to not try and bullshit papers. She said to find an aspect of the topic that interested me and try and focus that.

Responses to classmates

Week 1

Michael,

I literally agree with everything you just wrote. I have never really been interested in writing things that I do not necessarily care about. I am hoping there is more freedom in this class but I really want learn how to write in a formal matter. I really like your style of writing though. It is formal enough to be submitted for a class but casual enough that I feel like I am talking to you as a write it. I like that median and style of writing. I really do agree with everything you wrote because I think we are in about the same predicament with writing. 

Anthony,

I really like how your writing career developed through high school. I wish that I had something similar so maybe I would enjoy writing more. Writing fiction stories and skits need so much creativity, which I cannot even fathom. I think you hit the nail on the head saying everyone will have to formally write one day in their life and have to present people their opinion. Its one thing in life no matter how good or bad of a writer you are, you will have to do it. I agree with what you hope to do in this class and I hope to do it myself.

Brianna,

I wish that I had your love and creativity for writing. I envy people that can write well or that enjoy to write. After reading that I have developed a hatred for your English teacher. You are absolutely right, there is no set way that everyone can write. No two people have the exact same style of writing so it is idiotic to try and make everyone fit a certain template. I agree with you that writing is better when given the freedom to write about what you want and how you want it. I also share your excitement for this class because lab reports suck.

Did not have a 4^th response for week 1 because Courtni could not get hers to post and wasn’t sure what to do

Week 2

To Courtni: Adding detail to any paper or writing can make it better regardless of the topic. I think your teacher's advice is spot on. It seems that you had most of the tools to be able to write your stories; all you needed was a little push to be more descriptive. I am not one for intense description but I would like to hopefully change that in the near future. It is a good aspect of writing to focus on after the main portion of your writing is written; you can always go back and add more detail once it is done.

To Mike: I am one to procrastinate but holy shit 10 pages?! Like what the hell how do you expect a 5th grader to write 10 pages on anything. I, sadly, have the same habits as you when it comes to reading and writing. I really like to read something I find interesting and if it is I can't put it down. I really want to get better habits when it comes to my writing. Although it sucks to take time out of the days before the paper is due to write it, in the long run you save yourself a lot of stress. Giving this advice is very hypocritical but I think it is something we can both benefit from doing.

To Anthony: I really like the way your English teacher told you to write. It makes for a more interesting paper if all points on a subject are talked about. It can also help lengthen your paper if you are stuck and need to meet a word count or something. I try to write like this too. It is better to tell the full story rather then just what is good about a topic.

To Brianna: Although I have never heard of the piece you mentioned; it has already captured my attention because of the title. I always enjoy reading when the thing that I am reading is funny or entertaining. I think the best kind of writing is something that is meaningful but also goofy or entertaining enough to make the reader remember what they just read.

Week 3a

To Daniel: Holy shit yes. That is awesome. I like the ingenuity and quick thinking on your part. Rule breaking is also fun, especially at hotels. I can really imagine what everything looked like from the details provided. Props to the idea, very smart and it makes for a hilarious story.

To Mike: All I can say is that sounds like a lot of good, violent childhood fun. Like hot damn I wish I could have done that as a kid. I didn't even know many of the kids around me, let alone knew enough to get full-fledged football games going everyday. The detail really helps with this story; it makes you feel like you are there watching with all the visual description you give.

To Brianna: I have to say holy shit the detail. Everything was perfectly described and I feel like as I read it I was there seeing these different places. I really like how one place can give so many memories at different times over the course of the seasons. Things kind of coincided with like how your life was going from what I can gather; winter was somewhat sad but spring and summer brought new happiness. 

Week 3b

To Anthony: I wish I were able to travel as much as you did as a kid. Traveling is always a fun thing to do and a good way to learn about different places in the country. I can somewhat relate to the sports aspect more towards the video games. I was never into any of the sports that required too much coordination so yeah I ran track and XC. I was more of a fan of NBA Street myself just because it was more goofy than basketball actually was.

To Brianna: I like how you went back and related "How to write good" to what we learned in class. It helps relate the reading to what we are learning to understand better about what the piece is about. I am all for humor and I think it is a vital thing to have in any piece of writing to keep the readers attention because who doesn't like things that are funny?

To Mike: Even with the enhanced detail of this rewrite, the main point stays the same. Keeping it simple is the way to go with writing. The extra detail does help set the scene in the beginning and makes the story more relate able. 

To Megan: Although the first version of this writing got the point across, I believe the enhanced detail really helps explain the story more. Going more in-depth into the specifics of the writing and the advice helps show what your teacher meant and how you applied it.