Teacher+as+a+Writer+Memoir

The following was written as a memoir for my English 408W course:

The 8-Step Process

My very first memory involving writing came in the form of a picture in my parent’s bedroom. On a shelf surrounded by wedding memorabilia was a heart shaped frame. Contained in the frame was a picture of a beach. Written in the sand, just as a wave was about to roll up, were the simple words, “I love you.” These three words were spoken on a daily basis in my home and this picture instilled an even deeper meaning. For years to come, these words and this picture were duplicated on multiple occasions. (You can see me below with my own “I love you” from fifth grade).

 Growing up in a household with a Mom and older brother who had passion for art, I began my own art very young. From birthday signs to homemade cards and gifts, I tied my creativity in with my writing. Even my older sister did this by creating her own comic characters, Sly Fly and Benito Mosquito in which she incorporated into images that related to our lives. The one I can remember most is still hanging over the desk in our basement; it was Sly Fly and Benito Mosquito as characters in our own house, our Mom handling the little kids all mimicking the lifestyle we grew up in. Writing was always just that, words on paper telling a story. I never thought of what my “process” was for writing until sitting in a writing methods class my senior year of college. I had always learned to write in a series of outlining, rough drafts, and a final draft turned in for a grade. Growing up, I remember feeling so confined to this process and only ever wanting to just start on the final product. I never enjoyed the prep work, I saw it as a waste of time. Looking back, however, I always felt this way in regards to educational writing. For my personal writing pieces, I always followed a specific 8-step process without even realizing it:

__MY 8-STEP WRITING PROCESS__

__Ideas__  As a child my sidewalk was my canvas. Covered in pink, green, yellow, and orange I expressed my thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Whether they were whimsical creatures, stick figures of my family, or sweet messages my Mom could read from her bedroom window, I learned to express myself very young. This freedom of open expression is not just for children. Last Christmas, my Mom and I set out to decorate Christmas cookies. It was that time of year, Christmas break, and the smells of fresh baked cookies come from the kitchen, the sound of Christmas music fills the house. There is nothing like this time of year. For a college student, exams have just finished and there is nothing (school related) hanging over your head. The stress is being released, you are catching up on much needed sleep, and spending time with your loved ones.  This Christmas, I spent much of the time in the kitchen preparing the yummy treats for our holiday celebrations. After baking all day, my Mom suggested that we decorate some white fudge-dipped Oreos before we called it quits. Normally, this task is fun and simple, making small trees and snowflakes out of frosting, just like we did as children. Little did we know that this task would be more of an adventure!

It was like Goldilocks’ and the three bears but with frosting…

The first was too hard… The next, too runny…

Finally, we just gave up and squeezed it all over the counter! With the stress of exams flooding out of me and the stress of the holidays boiled up in my Mom, we let loose!

Having an active imagination and the opportunities for free expression may be the keys to preventing writing from simply becoming a tool. Perhaps more often we need to turn to our childhood imaginations to recreate the excitement and uniqueness that can be created through writing. All those years of finger-painting and free expression gave us an exciting foundation to work from. After learning the mechanics of writing throughout grade school, too often we forget that writing can be fun. I am sure many college students and adults wish that “fun” could be brought back, and it can be! I have never had a more fun way of saying Merry Christmas than this!  Ideas can also be inspired from photography. In my 10th grade creative writing class, Mr. Eggers assigned a project in which we were to take 1 roll of pictures (before digital cameras!) of a single object. It could be any object. I chose to take pictures of the American flag that hung outside of my house. From the roll of pictures, we were to choose our favorite and write a narrative about the picture. Always having a knack for photography, I loved this assignment. It engaged me not only in one of my favorite hobbies but it also made the connection between that passion and writing. While taking pictures, so many ideas come in your head about angle, lighting, framing, your focal point, and so much more! It is a lot like writing. You have to set up your stage, you have to figure out what the important pieces are to focus on while also considering the surroundings as well. Getting ideas for writing are a lot like getting ideas for photographs. Instead of just “aim and shoot” you can write out ideas in the form of a draft, a list, an outline, or even just a page filled with random thoughts and ideas that you will later come back to in order to find a common theme. Whether it’s in chalk, icing, photos, or pencil, these IDEAS are the very first step of my writing process.

__Outline__ Have you ever gone to bed at night and not been able to fall asleep because you keep thinking of things? Well, it happens to me all the time. Whether it was a stressful day or a laundry list of things still needing to be done, the thoughts can be daunting without the luxury of an “off” switch. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Rather than constantly trying to shut off that stream of consciousness, engaging it into organized writing can be useful. Like in life, writing needs organization. Tons of ideas may be floating around in your head or even on paper but without organization and structure, it is hard to take those ideas any further. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In elementary school, I remember creating outlines like the web, words stemming out in all sorts of directions from a single word or idea. Outlines can come in many forms: lists, charts, graphs, webs, or titles of potential headings, just to name a few. This element helps to get the ball rolling. From this outline, you can narrow in on what you actually want to write about and start developing your paragraphs.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Fragmented Paragraphs__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Wednesday, January 4th, 2006: Going to see “Walk the Line” with the entire family plus dinner out at Max and Erma’s. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Thursday, February 16th, 2006: Spending lots of time with Mom supporting each other as we deal with another loss in the family. It sucks but I know my family is there to support me. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006: Our last morning in Boston was great! Last minute pictures, a fun cab driver, and a plane delay...unfortunately only 5 minutes. Oh well, it was an amazing trip! I loved spending lots of time with just Mom and we had a ball together! Although it’s great to be home, I’m really going to miss Boston, it’s just such a great city.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For years I have written in fragmented paragraphs just like these. There was a saint (the name escapes me) that insisted on maintaining a positive attitude. Everyone always commented how happy she seemed to be all the time and wondered what her secret was. When she died, her family discovered her secret: journals. For years and years, every night before she went to bed she would write down at least one thing that was good about that day. Even on the worst of days, there is always something that instigated a smile, a laugh, or simply a good feeling, even if it was for just a moment. After reading this story, I took on the same task as I worked through some difficult times in my life. The three examples above are directly taken from my 2006 “Joy of the Day” journal. Family and friends are important in my life and at least one person was mentioned in almost every entry. While the first and third entries are examples of positive times and good days, the second example is one taken on the day I found out that my 28-year-old cousin had lost her battle to cancer. On days like this, it is hard to find anything to be happy about yet on days like these, it is the most important. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Turning thoughts or ideas into short paragraphs is the next stage in the writing process. While each may revolve around a separate thought, they should all be able to connect back to the same overarching idea. By simply writing and not worrying about grammar or transitions (yet!) it can help get the paper rolling.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Edit for Grammar and Punctuation__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My 7th grade English teacher, Ms. Way, made correcting writing miserable. From draft to draft, we would get them back covered in writing. It wasn’t the kind of remarks like “great thought,” “elaborate here,” or “I can’t wait to read more.” Rather, the marks were an endless stream of punctuation, grammar, and spelling corrections--corrections is too generous of a word, they were simply circles or asterisks and we had to figure out what was wrong. Each draft built on the previous which also meant the previous errors were scrutinized to ensure they had been fixed. I grew to hate her as my teacher, as did the rest of the class, simply because it seemed that nothing we did would ever be good enough. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It wasn’t until eighth grade English when I realized just how helpful all that editing was. While I felt like I was slaving away at the editing step in seventh grade, it had become natural (an instinct) by eighth. I automatically made the corrections in my writing the first time through which saved tons of editing time in the end. I remember Mrs. Yentz (my eighth grade teacher) telling me I did not need to do the in-class editing lessons that everyone else had to do. I was very proud of this and I felt it validated me as a writer. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Editing is a very important step in the writing process, it builds your credibility as a writer. How would you feel if you saw a spelling error in a published novel? Or perhaps a medical journal? That respect from the reader is very crucial. Therefore editing for punctuation and grammar needs to become second nature.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Transitions__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So now you have a solid draft of your paper. The next step is to work on your transitions from paragraph to paragraph and idea to idea. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Transitions have been a part of our educational experience from the very beginning. In elementary school the focus was on mechanics: how do you make a letter, how do you write sentences, and so on. I can still remember those “special” note books that had extra tall lines with a dotted one in the middle to help decipher lower case and upper case letters along with identifying proportions. I would like to go back to those elementary teachers who told us that from middle school on we would only be expected to write in cursive. I never had a class that required cursive and to this day, I can barely sign my own name in cursive. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Transitioning into middle school, grammar and spelling became a focus early (as mentioned in the previous section). By eighth grade, writing took a twist to the fun side. We wrote for ourselves and we spent a large chunk of time writing our short stories. Mine was the Chillsville Chums. I remember enjoying every second of that writing. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">High school saw a lot of development in writing from ninth grade writing short stories, memoirs, and research papers to tenth grade advanced composition classes, to junior and senior year using the writing skills to create persuasive arguments that could translate into educated debates. This range of writing created a solid foundation. Graduating high school I considered myself a writer, and I felt very confident in my abilities. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The transition from K-12 writing into college was not a fun one. Endless essays on seemingly pointless material began to consume my work load. Writing to prove I had read something or being required to fill 10 pages when I could have made my point in 5 turned writing from something I enjoyed to something I dreaded. Until this memoir, I have not enjoyed a single piece of writing for any college course, yet, somehow with this, I seem to be able to go on from page to page with no intention of stopping soon. (Sorry!) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To make the point, transitions are a part of writing, they were a part of how we learned to write and they are a part of how we will continue to grow as writers. Within a single piece, identifying areas needing a smoother flow are necessary before moving onto the final pieces of writing.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Meat It Up: Thesaurus!__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is an episode from the popular television show, Friends, in which one of the main characters writes a letter of recommendation to an adoption agency on behalf of his friends. He had recently discovered a new computer tool prior to writing this letter: the thesaurus. In using this tool he turned, “They are warm, nice, people with big hearts,” into “They are humid prepossessing Homo Sapiens with full sized aortic pumps.” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> While using tools such as these can make it seem “smarter,” it should be used with caution. The best use for this is when you have the same word repeated within the same area of the paper. For instance, instead of always using “also” when talking about multiple things, you could select phrases like, “in addition to,” “as well,” “furthermore,” and so on. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In college I wrote a paper on capital punishment. In this paper I not only included the facts of the pro/con arguments but I interjected with my own experiences. I have been fortunate enough to have a pen pal on death row for the past year and a half. I have learned a lot about prison life from corresponding with him and have a very unique viewpoint. This experience also influences my opinion on the subject. I have gotten to know someone on a personal level separate from the crime itself. By putting this personal experience into a paper filled with facts from the “experts” and PhD’s it adds persona, it adds something readers can grab on to, in short, it “meats it up.” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> When “meating up” a piece of writing, I find it useful to add specific examples. Once you have your outline done and your core points, it adds interest for your reader to more easily relate to what you are writing about. It does not always need to be something personal, the idea is to be able to check if your reader is still following, it helps ensure you are keeping them engaged with your writing.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Edit for content and flow__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The rubric. Do I have everything I need? Does it make sense? Is there anything else I should include? This final step before sharing is the one influenced most by all the previous steps. It’s like doing your homework Friday night versus Sunday night, did you plan ahead? If you took each step seriously as you went along and followed through, there will be no last minute panicking Sunday night as you scramble to crank out a product ready to turn in or publish Monday morning. Thus, since I have been detailed and followed through with each step in great detail as I have progressed through this piece, this element does not require a lengthy explanation. Re-read your writing, out-loud is best, and make your final touches. Simple as that.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Share__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In high school, I suffered from chronic migraines and was homebound for most of the four years. What this meant was I received school work from my teachers and was responsible for learning the material on my own and completing all the same work as my fellow peers were required to do. This was no easy task. I spent many hours in the evenings (when my pain was more manageable) with my books sprawled out on the table with my Mom next to me trying to help me wrap my throbbing brain around the concepts. One task I can remember clearly is trying to learn Romeo and Juliet. Plugging our way through the play, my Mom and I deciphered line by line the Shakespearean language. As an accompanying assignment, I was asked to write my own poem in the same format as this play was written. It was not easy to start but once I got the hang of it, it became quite enjoyable. It was so fun, in fact, that my Mom decided to make one of her own. It is a poem I stumbled on a few months ago stuffed into an old spiral notebook. In the poem, she wrote about me. She described me as she saw me, comparing me to a yellow rose (my favorite flower at the time):

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Shall I compare thee to a yellow rose?  <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whose blossom's beauty only makes me smile   <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With petals stretching out to make a pose   <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Embracing life with all that is worthwhile.   <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And plunging down life's long-stem path you find <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A thorn or two of challenges to face <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With courage and a hopeful frame of mind <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You splash, refreshed, in water from the vase! <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Your cheerful, happy, carefree leaves unfold <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A silly, funny teen who's treasured dear <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God smiles upon your laughing heart of gold <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reflecting floral beauty in the mirror. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">No Mom could be as proud of you as I  <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So glad to have my yellow rose close by."

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sharing is one of the most meaningful and rewarding experiences that can come from writing. Eight years ago, my Mom never would have guessed I would be referencing this poem much less remember she even wrote it. However, it is something I cherish and often look back on for comfort and support. I wrote my own at the time, of course, but I don’t remember the details of it. What I remember is the moment we shared together and the lasting outcome. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Whether you share your work with a loved one, a friend, a fellow classmate, or even a complete stranger, the feeling can be very empowering. While you may feel vulnerable or unsure, confidence and pride in your work is developed through all the steps I have outlined. Writing is like art, who is the judge? Just because one person thinks Picasso’s abstract approach is mediocre and overrated does not mean that someone else could be completely motivated and inspired by that same piece. Now that you have the tools to be successful, go out and share it with the world. You are your own judge, you have a voice and it MUST be heard!

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am no expert on writing. I simply have my own story to tell. I never knew I had an 8-step process until I stopped and paid attention to how this very piece was developed. Most of the elements I fought all through grade school and insisted were pointless. Just because this process works for me does not mean that it is the same for everyone. I encourage you to step out of yourself for a moment and watch how your own masterpieces are created. Every person has the tools to become a great artist, the outlet for that brilliance has endless possibilities.