Gere

I think as a younger child extracurriculum was encouraged a lot. I remember as an elementary student wanting to write and thinking it was fun. Not until I was in middle school and high school did it seem to turn into a chore. In elementary school writing was fun for me. I loved to be able to write about topics and see what others had to say. Doing things like journals and writing clubs was interesting as a younger student. I remember my teachers would encourage us to keep journals of our own to keep us writing and not only about things for school. In high school writing wasn’t fun for me anymore. I just spat out information or things I knew were expected from me and would help me to do well in my English classes. I was never encouraged to write outside of class as I got older. The only encouragement for me to write outside of the classroom was to work on an assignment. I think that also not really being able to write about things that appealed to me was a big factor in my liking writing as I got older. I tried to write here and there in high school, things like poems and short stories and even keeping a journal, but writing wasn’t the same as it once was.

I’ve never thought of myself as a writer, or even a good one at that. I’ve always managed to do well in my writing classes throughout the years but for some reason I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. I think the lack of encouragement plays a big part in that. Yeah I was good at spitting out information on a certain topic for an English paper, but I’ve always thought that I was stronger in other areas. Even today I think of myself as a so-so writer. I’ve always managed to do well in English but I’ve just never thought of myself as a great writer. I feel that in order to keep students involved in writing and to help encourage students to keep writing which will keep them interested in writing outside of the classroom is to encourage things like a journal or a poetry club or creative writing group. Though it’s harder to keep older students interested in things like that I think it’s important. Not so many high school students are going to think something like that is interesting, but for the few that do I think it’s worth the try to keep people interested in writing and not just for school purposes. “The women in the Tenderloin Women’s Writing Workshop take strength from finding that their experience is worth expressing” (pg. 76), and I agree. Knowing that expressing yourself through writing can help you vent and help others work through their problems and issues is nice. This is why I chose to keep writing, even if it was only a little journal, in my high school years. I felt that if I kept something like this it would not only help me vent, but it would keep me interested in writing other than just for school purposes.