Writing History Response

When one asks how I became the writer I am today, one particular memory rushes to mind. When I was 6 my mother would require me to read a book and then take my ink stained composition book and write down the contents of the book from cover to cover. After hundreds of hand spasms, thousands of shed tears, and countless angry words muttered under my breath, I realized why she was forcing me to do this. I slowly learned how certain authors wrote. I was able to learn new writing techniques and was then able to think about why the writer chose to convey the message they did in the way they chose.

Not only did this afford me the opportunity to become a stronger reader and writer but also to become a critical thinker. The ability to critically think is imperative to achieving success in school, work, and ultimately, life.

What does it mean to be successful in life and how do writing and critical thinking allow one to have the upper hand? In my short 18 year tenure in this world, I have been able to take advantage of opportunities that have altered my life forever. At the age of 6 I was placed into an accelerated learning center. I would go there in the morning as well as after school for two to three hours Monday thru Friday. There I was taught Spanish, ASL, as well as advanced mathematics and English concepts. I was in that school for 4 years during which I grew as an individual. Most six years old were focused on having fun and running around the mulch filled jungle gym and going down the seemingly monstrous eight foot Barney purple slide, not thinking about their times tables and reading books to get ready for the upcoming SRI test. In 5^th grade I was taken out of the learning center and allowed to be a normal child after school. During my 5^th grade year I was placed in to the gifted program. I was awkwardly removed from my standard class twice a week to go with the “gifted” students for an hour to work on project that didn’t relate to life or school at all.

Middle school was a little different compared to most adolescent teens. I was placed, again, in a gifted program. This program focused on advanced mathematics and sciences, never an English class. My love for math was found during these three years. My distain for English was able to grow and I detested going to English class, until my 8^th grade year. Mrs. Keith was the name of my 8^th grade advanced English teacher. Standing at over six feet tall with long blonde hair and the demeanor of a mom, she treated each of her students like they were her own kids. The way she approached English was something I had never seen. She would allow the students to pick our writing topics. Whatever interested us is what we were allowed to write on. She taught us the myriad of writing methods and planning methods. Her class is where I was able to find myself as a writer. I found how I write best, in what environments I operate most efficient in, and that it is okay to be emotional in writing. She encouraged us to push our writing, to go outside of our comfort zones in order to really be able to connect with the reader. She taught me how to see the same issue from different perspectives in order to understand the real issue at hand.

When I sit down to write I start with just throwing thoughts down onto a scrap sheet of paper. I was never able to make a web, or diagram, or a list of exactly what I want to talk about. When I was forced to do those methods in school, my writing suffered. I wasn’t able to stray from the organizational patterned and that confined my creativity. When I am able to just throw ideas on a sheet of paper and then start writing my work shows my creativity and my thought process. When a teacher would set a page limit I would freak out. I don’t see the reasoning behind page caps. It forced me to trim my ideas down or for me to remove them completely. Mrs. Keith never gave us page caps. I wrote her a 5 page descriptive essay on my athletic career and how it shaped me as a person, while others wrote only 2 pages.  Having the freedom to just write without limitations allows my mind to wander and think about new perspectives as well as bolster the creativity.

When I went into high school, I was, unbeknownst to me, nearing the end of my baseball career. Baseball was my life for 10 years. I didn’t see baseball as a sport; I saw it as a lifestyle. Baseball taught me about pride, sportsmanship, and humility to name a few. In an instance, the life I knew was taken away from me. It was the middle of All Star season on a miserable Florida June afternoon during a regular exhibition game. I had been pitching for 2 innings and my arm felt as good as ever. I was going from the windup, my catcher signaled with three fingers on his inside thigh, meaning curveball inside. At this point in my life I had thrown thousands of curve balls in practice as well as in games. I nodded my head in agreement, then slid my worn out Nike into the worn down mound against the rubber. As my leg rises to form the perfect angle, my fingers slide around the hard leather to grip the gleaming red laces. I continue through the wind up. As I ark my arm back and begin to lunge forward, I felt a bit of discomfort in my shoulder. It was too late to stop the throw. As I whipped my arm around, I felt a pop in my shoulder and fell to the ground. After consulting my doctor, I was informed that I had torn my rotator cuff and that I had two options. Option 1 was to get surgery, and then wait a few months and then be able to play baseball again. Option 2 was for me to give up baseball and go into heavy physical therapy in order to strengthen the muscle around my rotator cuff. I choose option 2. For months after I fell into a state of depression. Everything I knew and loved was taken away from me in an instance. I found comfort in writing. I would write stories of my life and how I was feeling about current event.

I then found a new love, swimming. Once I was introduced to swimming I came out of depression and was living life again. Since I found swimming, I learned how to become better in every aspect of my life. In every school paper of assignment I have always been able to incorporate swimming into them. My favorite assignment of all time was to write a narrative on a 30 minute time period. I wrote about my first districts meet from the warm up until the finish of the race. It forced me to really think about details and how to be descriptive in my writing. The biggest thing that’s I took away from this paper was the ability to convey real emotion through writing. I found it relatively easy to convey emotion. As long as I truly felt the emotion I was able to lace the words I was writing with it.

My stance on writing used to be that it was something my teachers and mom forced me to do as punishment or as filler for the sake of time. I now love to write and do it quite often. I am always looking to better my writing and new techniques to try.