“English”. Why take a class on a language I’m fluent in? At least, that’s the attitude I had in the first few years of my introduction to real full fledged writing. I began to write papers and long winded things of that nature near seventh or eighth grade, and to be quite honest the standards for those assignments were pitiful to say the least. I hate to say it, I really, truly do, but from day one of school to my sophomore year of high school, I was always a little underwhelmed by the subject of reading and writing. I learned how to read with my older
brother’s Calvin and Hobbes books, and from there I was just a grade or two ahead in everything that had to do with written words to paper. It was agitating, but I didn’t pay nearly as much attention to what I’d already learned as I do now. That’s sort of my current situation coming in to this course- an unfortunate sense of doing what I’ve already done once again.
I’ve been in AP and honors English courses since I started high school, having taken both AP language composition and literature my junior and senior year. My scores on both exams were of the average acceptance rate, a three. In fact, the school I’m transferring to come December 2015 would have taken them upon arriving. For some reason or another, though, Saint Charles Community College has decided that language needed one point higher and that literature shouldn’t be offered for credit at all.
So here I am, retaking these college level courses I’ve already taken in high school, where I was writing essays literally up to twice a week by the end of my senior year. I’m annoyed by this, pestered to say the least, but it’s what I have to do if I want to get out of here as fast as I can. I’m not going to preach this idea that I’m too good for the class either, as that’s just rude and unnecessary.
For all I know, this course is more difficult than my last; however, it stands to reason that I’d be frustrated being forced to take a class I shouldn’t have to by most schools’ standards. That tangent aside, my overall attitude going into this class can best be summed up as begrudgingly confident. Though in my experience, there does seem to be a change in standards as the years and curriculum age on, so who knows how well my writing will support itself in this course.
Some of my strengths as a writer are my ability to utilize elevated diction, recognize and analyze the rhetorical devices an author may take advantage of, and maintaining a consistent standard of syntax. One of my weaknesses just so happens to be an awful habit of being way too verbose, but we’ll get to that later. The various types of essays I’ve written over the years include rhetorical analysis, synthesis, narratives, compare and contrast, argumentative, and many more.
Outside of an english class, my writing has been centered around scripts as of late, although the content I write is probably a lot more high brow and humourous to myself than it is to any audience I could submit it towards. Perhaps someday I’ll get around to debuting my work online, but production has run slow after two years of writing multiple seasons and I’ve recently hit a snag in the creative element. I’ve always considered myself a creative individual, whether it be my short stories or my peculiar art, I’ve had a knack for coming up with bizarre concepts- even if the execution falls short in practice.
This is where I feel like I have the foundation to be a great writer, but it’s sometimes hindered by a lack of following through with my vision. Sometimes it’s the concept that I have fleshed out without a means of truly conveying my vision, and other times it’s the ability to just keep writing for hours without any real meat to add to the story. Hopefully in my time with this class I can learn to overcome this habit, whether that be by just writing more often or expanding my current set of skills.
