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Brianna Griffin
Miss E
UWRIT 1103-024
23 September 2014
My Writing Experiences
When I was in Kindergarten, our class was assigned to write a book. The teacher, Mrs.
Layton created it into a hardcover book with our own illustrations, cover art and title. We wrote
about whatever we wanted and whatever we wrote, Mrs. Layton published it as is. For example,
one of the sentences I wrote was I like to play tga wef my frdz which translates to I like to play
tag with my friends. Under the sentence she would fix the misspelled words so people reading
the book could actually understand what we were trying to say. This book, in Kindergarten,
helped me realize that I could be a writer, not a very good one, but a writer nonetheless. Even
with words misspelled, Mrs. Layton published the book. This experience helped me believe in
myself and initiated a positive image of writing at such a young age. Mrs. Layton lead us to
believe, through the use of this book, the thought that we could be great writers regardless and to
always try even if you think that you cannot do something.
Also in kindergarten and first grade, the class used to trace letters and numbers in an
effort to learn how to write them correctly. Whenever we used to trace them properly we would
get stickers and stars. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we got the stickers that smelled. They use to
smell like strawberries, oranges, grapes. This positive reinforcement helped me learn how to
write properly and gain a good image of writing.
When I actually started writing poems, papers, essays etc I did not enjoy it as much as
I do now. I started writing more than basic sentences in fourth grade and the teacher never really

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encouraged nor discouraged the classs writing. She did not give us feedback or help us so when
I got into the fifth grade my writing was less than fantastic. For example, I was constantly
writing about poems and their interpretation. I was never able to accurately understand the point
the author was trying to get across therefore when I wrote the essay I would always get terrible
grades. Id get my papers back with red marks all over and a fat eighty-percent circled at the top.
However, I never understood why I always got low grades or how I was misinterpreting the text.
My teacher never explained or taught me how to correctly write a paper or annotate a poem so it
can correctly explicated. My fourth grade teachers lack of assistance and teaching really hurt
me in the future. I did not have positive outlook on writing from fourth to seventh grade. The
English teachers through those years were basically just a stand in teacher who looked like they
were teaching, but in reality taught me nothing. The teachers stood and drilled random tidbits of
grammar into my head, none of which stuck. I was never interested in grammar as child, I always
wanted to write and write well which meant to write about content. Those teachers through the
years made me think that it was not about content but about grammar. The emphasis on grammar
gave me a negative view because it was not what interested me or what I thought was important;
I felt like I was wasting my time. The writing in those years was less than stellar because no one
pushed me to write or helped me improve my writing style. I did not come away with a positive
feeling towards writing due the lack of teaching and lack of concentration on quality.
One influential moment of my writing history was my tenth grade English class and the
big research paper due at the end of the semester. The assignment was to read a book on an
approved list and write a four to five page paper about it. I read a novel about a veteran of the
Vietnam War; once I started writing the paper, it had to go through stages of revision. There was
a rough draft, revised draft, revised again draft and then finally the final draft. The first two

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drafts were read by peers, but the draft before the final was read by the teacher. My teacher, Mrs.
Sweeny with her high-pitched voice and parous stomach, made multiple comments about the
paper and how I could improve it such as add more details here, add quotes here, misspellings,
add a comma/grammatical errors, etc. Most of her comments didnt seem to make any sense to
me. For example she would write things like change this or add word here, but would never
tell me why or explain what I was doing wrong. To Mrs. Sweeny the purpose of the paper was
more grammatical than content driven and I had never really grasped the concepts of basic
grammar; I had always worked on the quality of the paper. I worked for about a week working
on the changes she had suggested and when I turned it in I felt pretty good about it. However, I
was sadly mistaken. On the rough draft process I had received an eighty as a grade and on the
final paper I received an eighty- five. I was disappointed and did not understand how I could
work so hard and change everything and still only receive five points higher. This situation gave
me a very negative view on writing because, at the time, I believed that even though I had tried,
it still was not good enough. My mother tried to assist me with the grammatical aspects.
However, it was so difficult as I had such a little basis for grammar my mother pretty much had
to edit and revise most of my papers because my teachers failed to do so. She tried to teach me
the importance of grammar, but it never really clicked until I entered to the eleventh grade. My
mothers persistence though, was a huge part of my writing past and how I became the writer I
am today.
My attitude towards writing started to change back towards a more positive view in my
AP US History class in eleventh grade. I learned my love of analytical and research type of
writing. Mrs. Burke, the teacher, used to make the class read passages and write and explain the
point and how we viewed the passage. I learned then that I actually really liked this type of

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writing and moreover I was good at it. I enjoyed it so much because there were cold hard facts
that did not change and it was easy for me to comprehend and analyze the facts. Before this, I
had always had a hard time writing papers because I was constantly afraid that I would not
interpret the story or poem right, but with history, facts are facts. I could not exactly interpret
facts the wrong way. Mrs. Burke helped me become a better writer by presenting me with
situations that challenged my thinking and helped me develop better writing skill with constant
reinforcement. For example, I had to write a paper on the reason the United States got involved
with World War II; we had four possible options as to why the US got involved and we had to
pick one and write the paper. This was by far the hardest paper I had ever written; the articles
were hard to read and I couldnt make any sense out of what I was trying to write. Mrs. Burke
however, let us turn in rough drafts and helped she helped me create a much better paper. She
would comment on paragraphs and say they were fuzzy and needed work, to make my ideas
more clear, but at the same time she would comment on things she liked as well making me feel
like I was still a good writer that just needed to tweak some things. Mrs. Burke, unlike Mrs.
Sweeny, thought papers should be more about substance. She would make changes to the
mistakes in grammar, but would focus on the point of the paper and what you were trying to
prove/say. She would comment on what I had done wrong, but also on the things she liked about
my papers. It helped me grow as a writer, but at the same time know that I was not a bad writer.
Through both positive and negative influences and experiences, I have been able to see
writing as a fun, easy thing to do when you get the hang of it. However, I did not always see
writing that way. Without both the positives and the negatives I would not be the writer I am
today, that writer being a type of analytical and research writer. All the experiences that I went
through, especially later in my life, have created a positive outlook on writing.