In today’s society writing plays a big role in how we communicate and express ourselves. Many people use writing as an outlet, a way to get their thoughts out onto paper. Many others use writing as a way to prove something or even to prove they know something. The ability to be able to write well isn’t as common as you’d like to think and people who do write well are seen as educated people who are above the norm. For example the amount of people that don’t know the difference between “there” and “their” is huge, a person could write the best paper in the world but if they make a simple grammar mistake such as the “there” “their” mistake then their whole paper could come off as untrustworthy.
When I first started to really think about this assignment and my own personal experiences with writing, it made sense that I explain my background and childhood first. I grew up in a Mexican household so grammar and the English language in general was not a thing for us, Spanish was my main language. My mom raised me being a single mom so it was always a little difficult for her to be able to help me with homework or anything of that such.
During elementary I remember loving English but I also remember how much I struggled, during this time I was in those after school groups for kids who struggled with writing and English. Although I was struggling with it I still loved English, in fact it used to be my favorite class. During my last year of elementary school I signed myself up for an after school tutoring group, my tutoring teacher was amazing and my writing skills improved by a considerable amount.
When I finally got to middle school I was pretty good at writing, I was in English accelerated classes and I always maintained above average grades. During this time I was excited to write because all of my friends were in the same class and so it became competitive. I wasn’t always confident, I did have moments where I felt almost ashamed because I wasn’t as good of a writer as everyone else. My vocabulary wasn’t as wide as I wanted it to be and I felt trapped in a box where I couldn’t fully express myself the way i wanted to.
When I was in my freshman year of high school, I was about 4 months in and unfortunately during this time I had a problem at home that eventually resulted in me dropping out of school. While I was out of school I traveled and lived in my car, I went to so many places and I remember wishing that I was a better writer so I could write about my adventures. An entire year passed by and I decided to enroll myself in a continuation school. It was a school meant for kids who didn’t do well in school or lacked credits. There was 130 students and many times students wouldn’t show up so on occasions i’d have maybe 4 classmates per class. So it wasn’t surprising that most of my teachers were not too serious about their jobs. Many of the assignments were easy and I didn’t have to put too much effort. I was genuinely upset because I wanted to improve my writing and because of the situation I was in I felt like I wasn’t worthy of a good education. I lost my love for writing and I was ashamed of my writing skills.
Im an artist and i’ve never been very good with words, I could never explain to people how I felt but I could easily paint a picture of the emotions I was feeling. As an artist i am always trying to push myself and my artistic boundaries so i can produce different types of works that will keep my audience interested. Recently with my artworks I have been trying to include more of my writing into my paintings, I was trying to combine two forms of expression. I wanted to try and tune into the writing aspect because of my struggle with it in the past. I managed to make a few pieces that I was fairly happy with but overall I was feeling discouraged once again.
Rearview shot of a young woman looking frustrated while trying to paint on a canvas at home
Despite all of this I am still determined to evolve my writing skills, one of the main reasons for me going to college is because I really do want to write better. Writing is beautiful and it has impacted so many lives, expression is what life is about.
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