I Am a Writer

I’ll be completely honest–I was kind of dreading taking this class. Writing 340 has a reputation on campus of being miserable and my experience in WRIT 150 was extremely negative. My professor was unprofessional in her conduct, she was condescending to her students, and her feedback was not constructive. My writing and my confidence suffered as a result of the class. I think because I took that class my first semester of college, and since my experience was as poor as it was, it set me on the wrong path for the rest of my time in college, particularly as it pertains to writing. My attitude towards writing was pessimistic; I truly believed that I couldn’t write, so, why bother?

Essentially, that class destroyed the enthusiasm I had for writing. As a kid and throughout high school, I had always enjoyed writing song parodies, movie scripts, movie reviews, and sports writing. I never considered that “writing” at the time, but, as I reflect back, it absolutely is.

I find it unfortunate that high school and university writing classes beat the love of writing out of students. Just ask any student; I bet two out of three will tell you they despise writing. But, I would argue that they just hate the way they’ve been taught, or told, to write. I think the problem is teachers and professors teach us one way to write academically. The writing is formulaic and monotonous. We’re often told what to write about, which also stunts any creativity or inspiration students may have.

The reasons I laid out above are why I found this WRIT 340 class so refreshing and, honestly, invigorating–reigniting my passion and love for writing. I won’t lie; I was a little skeptical the first week of class. I found our first reading “Lives of the Bohemians” by Jonathan Lethem too inaccessible and abstract for my liking. Also, when I heard we could write about anything for our first writing project, I was pretty overwhelmed.

In my previous writing class, we were told to write all of our projects on cancel culture (which turned out to be a total drab), so hearing we could choose anything was exciting in concept, but somewhat anxiety-inducing and frustrating because I didn’t know where to start. I’ve always just written about what I’ve been told to. However, once I honed in on my topic of interest, the writing process was extraordinarily freeing and flowed easier than I’d ever experienced.

Perhaps what I appreciated most about the format of the class was that we were encouraged to experiment with multi-modal projects. I consider myself a storyteller, and writing is the key component of telling stories.

Storytelling can come in many different forms, such as oral, as we see with podcasting, or visual, with photos and videos. What I’m saying is, that writing doesn’t solely have to be a classic academic 12-page paper. So, allowing us to write and tell stories in a variety of ways is not only pushing us to be more creative, but it’s also preparing us for life after graduation. I feel I am much more likely to be asked to write using a different medium in my future career than I am to write an academic paper.

Something I used in all of my writing projects was interviews. Being a journalism major helped, but I love connecting with individuals, hearing their stories, and being able to share them with others. What’s funny is, by implementing a multi-modal approach to my projects, I actually made more work for myself, but I never minded because I was enjoying what I was doing since I felt there was a purpose to the work. It was never about hitting some arbitrary word count.

My biggest takeaway from the class is that I am actually proud of the work I published. Before, I would work hours and hours on papers, only thinking about how the professor would perceive the work. I was writing for someone else. But in this class, I was writing for myself–what I was interested in. It never crossed my mind how my peers or professor would take my writing, and having that burden lifted allowed me to do my best, unfiltered work.

Another thing I appreciated was that we had the flexibility to build upon our previous writing projects or not. I began my first project on the negative depictions of fathers on television and how the portrayals negatively affected the perception of fathers in the real world. After completing the project, I realized that I had said all I wanted and needed to on the issue. I never felt pressure to continue the topic with my later projects. However, my second project investigated the longstanding belief that free speech and expression were encouraged on college campuses. When I finished my WP2, I realized I still had so much more I wanted to say and research.

My findings from the survey I constructed in WP2 revealed a staggering correlation that conservative-leaning students do not feel comfortable voicing their opinions in class. So, I decided I wanted to hear directly from these students and hoped that by conducting interviews I would get some answers as to why they feel this way.

Until this class, I had never sent family members or friends my writing. I mean, why would they care? My papers always felt cookie-cutter and uninspiring. With this class, though, I couldn’t wait to share my projects, and I got some great feedback from people who seemed to really enjoy the content.

I can confidently say that, because of this class, I am a more creative, self-assured, substantive writer. It’s honestly an amazing feeling to have my final writing class of college end on such a positive note. I now know that, when I’m given the proper time, tools, and freedom to explore my interests through writing, I am capable of truly powerful work that I can be proud of. If anything, I can leave college telling myself, “You know what, I do enjoy writing, and dammit I’m pretty gosh darn good at it.” I am a writer.