~Power In Words~
English 1102 058
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Informal #1
My first informal piece is my very first forum post that I wrote, which questions the thought behind “what is good writing?” My writing that day was very structured for once. Usually I feel as though my words are all over the place, but on this day we had just finished reintroducing many different concepts that are discussed in writing and I believe that it helped get my point across much more thoroughly. The question we had to answer is something that I always beat myself up about. “Good” writing was something I was convinced that I could not master, but on this day armed with the information that we had been gathering from previous days, I finally opened my eyes and realized that no one can truly define what good writing was. This knowledge put me at peace, and that peace and sense of pride that it had given me is what I believe allowed me to eventually grow as a writer throughout the year.
Informal #2
My second informal writing piece is a forum post in response to the speaker Randy Pausch and his delivery of the “Last Lecture.” I had felt that the speech, or lecture, was extremely powerful and I loved the subtle emphasis he placed on the concepts that were most dear to him. His story is a sad one, but I think what touched me the most is not the fact that he was dying, but the fact that his writing had a purpose. I think the first time I heard the speech in class I zoned out for a few minutes because I don’t even recall him mentioning having cancer, I only found out when I re-watched the speech to write the response. I think not realizing him mentioning the cancer made it that more eye opening because I had honestly felt that it was a strong speech regardless. Don’t get me wrong the cancer does sell the story and make others who would otherwise be uninterested become interested, but there is no denying the power that his words had behind them. Though everything writing technically has a purpose behind it, a reason for writing it, his purpose was something that was just so powerful in my eyes. A true purpose, to me, is when your writing aims at hitting something deeper, at tugging on your audiences’ heart, at showing the human, the meaning, the voice behind the words. I have always felt that there is power in words, but hearing Randy just made me realize that the reason that I love writing so much is not because of the power the words possess, but because of the impact that they leave.
Informal #3
My third informal writing piece is a daybook entry that I wrote up as my topic proposal for my “This I Believe” essay. Though I only chose to place a picture of my final draft of my proposal, the transition to this final piece was a sloppy mess, as hundreds of ideas raced across my mind to be possible candidates for my proposal. I was constantly questioning my decisions as I stated hundreds of times, “how do I write about what I believe when I’m at a position in my life where I don’t know what to believe.” The process took a lot of soul searching and critical thinking on my part, what life stories could fit, what beliefs would matter, what would leave that impact that I had been searching for ever since hearing Randy’s speech? It took a lot of steps, but after a while I developed a proposal that I was satisfied with, where I was able to portray the elements that I had wanted to express as a writer. Since then I have grown, enhancing my skills with the other techniques that were given to me, but at this point in the year this entry contained all that I was as a writer.
Informal #4
My fourth informal writing piece is a forum post in response to the reading of the “Body Rituals among the Nacirema.” In this post I made connections with who I was as a person, with who I was as a writer. This connection is something that I had been searching for, I wasn’t sure what to believe, I wasn’t sure who I was or who I would become, but at the same time I knew in my heart the things that I valued and I knew that I loved writing. This connection allowed me to find that voice in my writing that I was looking for and enhance the purpose I have previously discussed with my belief in the power that words possess. In the end, this connection is what has allowed me growth as a writer and become more versatile in my writing style.
Informal #5
My final informal writing piece is a daybook entry about the single story, which was by far my favorite in-class writing assignment. It was the first time that I had ever heard of TED videos and I loved every second of it. Chimamanda Adichie portrayed everything that I wanted to be in regards to an author. She was posse, elegant, and she was able to speak from her heart connecting with her audience about a serious concept that she had believed in. Her speech became the final piece to my puzzle proving to me that the aspects of a writer that I admired where not unreachable, all whilst teaching me a lesson about writing that I had never considered. Adichie taught me the very real truth that there is an infinite about of stories behind a person and that a single story of them is an injustice to the person that they are. This realization allowed me to grow so much as a writer, because I now realized how important it was to attack a character, an argument, a paper, any type of writing really, from several viewpoints in order to create the full picture.