Linguistic History

When I was younger, in middle school, a lot of the poetry we did was based on poetry. We would read a certain poem and write about our reactions to it. Sometimes we would write our own poems and give them to other people to see how they reacted to it. These English classes were always pretty hard for me though. I don't really understand poetry that much because poetry is very abstract and I'm very concrete. Instead of the writing aspects of those classes I preferred the reading part. I like to read about a lot of different things. I read a lot of romance novels because I'm an admitted hopeless romantic. But I also read mysteries and biographies. Right now I'm reading a book about the assassinations of JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, and the involvement of the mob in those assassinations. I like to read about things I'm interested in, not things I'm assigned.

For most of the classes I took here on campus, I've had to write a lot of papers. I don't mind writing them as long as I can write them within my own guidelines. When I'm told that the paper has to be a certain length or contain certain information, then that's when it gets hard for me. Getting started is always the worst part for me. Introductions and conclusions just take me a long time to do. Instead of writing them first, I start with the body paragraphs. It's easier for me to write facts that I know, rather than try to get into a topic from nothing.

I think assignment writing is pretty different from other types of writing we do in everyday life. Most of the time you're being given something to write about and being told how to do it. When you're writing in everyday life, for instance texting, you define your own writing guidelines. You get to use your personal voice rather than somethings your trying to make sound formal or acceptable to whomever is reading it.