Writing an essay should be about expressing your feelings and being able to have the liberty to put it in paper. I feel that the difference between high school and college is that in college we write with more of a meaning and with freedom of speech while in high school we write just about what has been asked to write. In high school each essay instruction comes with rules on how the teacher wants the paper to be written and the only point that sticks out every time they grade it is if the student has followed the instructions. I always felt it was not necessary to follow all the steps the teacher asked for and decided to go my way and write with meaning and liberty.
What I mean by writing with a meaning is that when I write a paper I like to relate the assignment with what is going on in the world or in my life. I am writing with thought and with feelings, I am not just writing because I have to, I also put more time in the paper. In all my years in school I have only written to a public audience which was my classroom once. This was a couple of years ago when my teacher assigned a paper to write about the moment that impacted our lives the most. This was a paper with absolutely no rules or instructions, it was said that we could write free even with no format. That was a time in my life where I was going through a lot because my really close uncle had recently died, so I decided to write a really long and meaningful paper about how his death had impacted and changed my life. This paper was a success in my classroom and in my family because I was allowed to write about how I felt with no rules. I felt that expressing how I was feeling at that time and everything that was happening around me in a paper was going to take it out of me. The only time I ever shared a paper with an audience was that time and some of my classmates responded by crying with me, it was a really emotional moment. Writing a paper is about being able to make people smile and cry and to write until you feel you can. It should never be assigned with limitations and rules.
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Susana, sorry to hear about your uncle. Your paper must have been a really good one if it got people to cry. Losing a family member is always tough. I agree with what you have to say about limitations and rules. Putting these restrictions on papers never lets the writer truly express themselves. It's like putting a clown in a box where nobody can see him and telling him to entertain.
ReplyDeleteHey Susana! I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, too. I'm also really impressed that you were able to write about it for your classmates and cultivate such emotion among them. In rhetorical terms, some might say that you used pathos--or you appealed to emotions. That's tough to do in writing, so I can see why writing what you feel and writing with meaning is so important to you.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, though, I find it productive to try and separate myself from my initial passions and emotions when I write...it's a productive challenge or something. At times, this leads me to new ideas and perspectives, and I surprise myself. Has that ever happened to you? Or to anyone else out there reading this? I guess I feel like there's something to be said for all different types of writing--whether it be written entirely from one's heart, or whether it's based in an imposed structure or prompt.