Writing On Writing

One of my first encounters of writing, and learning how to, is from first grade. I remember in first grade the only thing that I was worried about was Hall Bucks. Which was my first grade teacher Mr. Hall’s form of currency, you could use it to get toys and candy and extra credit on assignment. It was way better then anything I ever knew about, it was almost better than candy. And you could get them for everything, especially for writing, and having good handwriting. And in first grade there was a kid by the name of Mitchell Penrose and it seemed to me that he was always constantly receiving Hall Bucks, and it made me so frustrated that he always got them, but in my first grade mind, I never ever got one. So I was relentlessly trying to get just one more than him or at the least the same amount as him. And alas this story has no happy ending I don’t think I ever received more than him, as far as I can remember. I think it taught me to try and be better at writing then others and try harder then my peers.

            Another influence on my writing happened in 4^th grade this experience really left an impression on me. During class my teacher Ms. Klinger assigned my class a writing assignment, to write how to make a PB&J sandwich, and after we finished we could go to recess till school was over and there was about 45 minutes of school left. So I wrote and I quote what I wrote “Take the peanut butter and jelly and put it in between bread.”  The next day class was in session for humiliation.  Ms. Klinger had brought in peanut butter, jelly, a loaf of bread, and two knives. She then made examples out of some of the student’s papers. Mine was one of them. For mine she took two pieces of bread out of the bag. She then grabbed one container of peanut butter and one container of jelly, mashed them onto one piece of bread and slammed the other on top of it asking the class, “Is this how you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” With which the class replied with laughter, but all I can say is at least I didn’t spell knife wrong. She then went on in detail on how to make a PB&J sandwich, telling us that we needed to be more descriptive in our writing and put more detail into it. Which I think for the most part has stuck with me throughout most of my teenage years

            One problem I have with my writing is that I almost always do my assignments the night before its due even the huge assignments. Which really isn’t good for my health and my work ethic. One reason I think I do procrastinate is because almost always I don’t want to write on what I have been given, and for that matter I am not a big fan of writing, but hopefully, by the time college comes around, I’ll enjoy it a little bit more.

            One weakness I have in writing is not writing rough drafts. I rarely if ever write rough drafts even when the teacher tells us to write one. But I think some of my strengths I have is being able to write final drafts quickly and being able to write fairly decent stories.

            As I writer I have learned through this case study assignment that I can only write when there are no distractions and noise. I also learned that I procrastinate way too much and that I need to start changing this bad habit. In addition I need to start writing rough drafts more often. Lastly I learned that I like to tell stories and tales.