Write for Passion
My English teacher's favorite movie, of which he quoted all of the time, was "Field of Dreams". We all thought he was a bit of a nerd for it then, but in hindsight he built the field for me to love reading and writing. Every assignment he would put in front of us seemed to be something we could take on personally and make our own. One such assignment was a descriptive paper. There were no perceived limits other than it was to be a story, fictitious or not, and to draw out the details, to make the reader become part of our story. I, having a taste for theatrics at the time, had a great idea to start a story about a journey through the layers of the rainbow. I was a character taking this imaginary journey through this rich world I had created. I carefully planned out, that's right I did a brainstorming pre-write, what sort of characteristics each color had to offer. I imagined the characters, the scenery, the smells, the adventures that could be had trying to reach the leprechaun and the pot of gold waiting for me at the end. I became so lost in my world that I wrote every detail I could imagine. I became so lost, in fact, that I had written six typed pages only making it through violet and indigo (we went from bottom to top). My teacher, for class-time constraints, forced me to end the story at that point in order to peer-edit and do final drafts so the class could move on to other topics. When the day came to peer-edit, no one wanted to read mine because it was so long. I never understood why they wouldn't want to read such fascinating story. I turned in those six pages, but continued the story through a few more layers before I began to lose interest. To this day I have friends that mention my "rainbow story" with laughs. They always thought it was a bit eccentric, but it was the premise of that paper, that story, that brought me to love to write and realize that I was more than a talented musician. I could write.
To be a Journalist...
My journalism teacher taught me that writing can serve a purpose in our society. My middle school journalism class put out a paper for the school. We were given an assignment to write a newspaper article on anything that we decided to choose. It could be about a school team, a review of a movie or music, a fact based article, a personal story students could learn from, or anything else that we were moved by. I wanted to write about something that mattered to middle school kids. I wanted to write something people could learn from. I settled on writing about eating disorders in teenagers. I did all of my research online and in books from the library. I spent hours learning about anorexia and bulimia. I learned all of the facts about these disorders and how they manifested themselves in teenagers. I wanted to share with my peers what I had learned and help them know how to help their friends that might be struggling with these issues. I turned in my article to my journalism teacher on the deadline and waited to hear if my article would make the next edition of the paper. One day my teacher called me up to her desk to talk about the article. She told me it was wonderfully written and she thought a lot of students could learn from it. She also told me there was another student that had written about her battles with anorexia. I remember my heart sinking, there was no way we could put two articles on the same topic in the paper, I knew mine would get cut. However, I was pleasantly surprised when my teacher suggest this student and I work together on our pieces to edit them and place them side by side on the front page of the next edition. We worked really hard on our articles and I really enjoyed the process of collaborating to make a memoir and research article become one. This was the first time I ever realized that writing was not dead once it was given to the teacher. All writing is still living and can always change, always improve. I would like to think that this process which meant so much to me was able to help students at my school to deal with their eating disorders.