Improvement
When I heard that I had to take WRIT150, I think I assumed it would be a writing class that explored the same ideas as what I learned in high school. We would work on developing a good thesis and be coached on how to write a “proper” essay. I figured it would be a pretty easy class for me; I tended to get good grades on writing assignments in the past, and figured this class would be no different. But from the very beginning of the semester I saw that Professor Dissinger’s class was not what I expected. Though it only spanned a few months, I think that WRIT150 this semester has helped me actually grow as a writer more than any other english class I have taken.
From the start I was being encouraged to step away from the very straightforward essay writing I had been conditioned to do. We read Should Writers Use They Own English by Vershawn Ashanti Young where he proposes the idea that having and teaching a “standard” english is irrational. In class we then discussed how this idea applies to the way that we are taught to write in school. The 5 paragraph essay with a formulaic thesis has become essentially the only way students know how to write about their ideas. Professor Dissinger told us to step away from this approach. We needed to let the ideas lead the essay. It should be cohesive and flow from one paragraph to the next, rather than be broken up into very distinct paragraphs.
I’m pretty sure I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn’t claim to be the best writer, but I felt I was pretty solid and that my essays tended to be filled with ideas. But when I received my grade for WP1, I realized that my writing must not be as good as I thought. I still wasn’t quite sure how to fix it though. As we moved through the year, we talked a lot about how to improve our writing and did paragraph revision sessions so we could get a better idea of what we were striving for. Professor Dissinger showed us how the majority of our paragraphs had a long buildup to the main idea. He urged us to move the important stuff up in the paragraph. He continued to tell us that we all had good ideas, we just needed to make those ideas the focus of our essays.
With more practice, I started to better understand what my professor was saying. I needed to remove the unnecessary words. I needed to take my writing and condense it to the core ideas, and then go back and expand upon those ideas. As it was, my writing was kind of all over the place. I had a lot of underdeveloped concepts, and then a significant amount of information that wasn’t really contributing to the purpose of the paper. To anyone that wasn’t me who was reading my essay, they probably felt as though they were missing the links between the ideas. Those links were in my mind, but I hadn’t fully explained them.
The progress in my writing was most apparent to me when I went back to do my revision of WP1. I started by simply reading my original version, and honestly I was slightly appalled. It was terrible. I couldn’t believe that I had actually submitted it in the past. Two of the body paragraphs said essentially nothing that related to the main idea. While there may have been a connection that I originally had in my mind, I had not made that clear to the audience whatsoever. I ended up taking out the majority of the first half of that paper, and then I rewrote and reconstructed until I had something that actually made sense and had a purpose.
While it took some time to get used to, and I still haven’t mastered it, I have found that this style of writing truly results in a more idea driven essay. My ideas become the focus of the essay, and don’t get lost in the swarm of other words I have written. Doing this has allowed my writing to become less superficial. I no longer am trying to write super bulky paragraphs with multiple different ideas in each one. I am simply concentrating on getting my thoughts across to the reader.
All of this has taught me how to have more clarity in what I am writing. The ideas in my essays now feel less jumbled, and each paper as a whole has a clearer purpose. I feel like I can now write things that are worth reading; previously, a lot of what I had written was only being read by my teacher because they had to grade it. In the past I have been told to put more details into my writing. After this semester, I think I finally understand what everyone means. They wanted more details, but they wanted relevant details. They wanted me to go further into what I was thinking, and develop the ideas that were inside my head.
Ultimately this semester has given me more clarity about who I am as a person. In order to achieve the things I described above, I needed to think harder about what I actually felt. I had to dive into my own ideas in order to expand upon them. If you are vague in your ideas, then your writing is going to be vague. In order to create more idea driven essays, there needs to be substance to those ideas.
This semester I faced a good deal of writer’s block. Looking back, however, I think it was simply that I didn’t really know what I was trying to say. I had a few big ideas, but I wasn’t able to really get into those ideas and elaborate. When doing the revision of my WP3, I felt like I was more successful at finding what to say. Focusing on leading with specific ideas helped me to avoid feeling as though I had said everything I wanted to say in a few short paragraphs. By working on conveying my ideas, the essay got longer without me having to force it to.
Moving forward in my life, I hope to be able to take what I have learned this semester with me. I feel like my writing sounds more eloquent without being overly verbose. I also feel like I have a better understanding of comments that have been given to me in the past. Most importantly, though, I am glad that I have learned how to get away from the 5 paragraph essay. I knew that I wanted to, but my essays always seemed to take that form even if I didn’t try to construct them that way. Now I am able to write in a way that puts the focus on what I am trying to say, and I am happier with the work I am able to produce.
