Personal Narrative: My Quest Of Reading And Writing

Writing is a creative process and is without a doubt one of the greatest forms of art. To a writer a word is like the paint that an artist uses to decorate their canvas. While lacking any true meaning on its own, once it is blended and used in union with other words it can end up creating a masterpiece that spurs the imagination and inspires thought. As a kid I always was in awe by the power of words and their ability to make a story and make me feel like the worlds they spoke of actually existed. In turn I always strived to write my own stories and use the power of words to their fullest potential. Throughout my quest of reading and writing as a child I was supported by both family, including my father and sister, as well as my teachers in …show more content…
The trials and tribulations of high school English classes appeared to antagonize me throughout every step of my journey. The days of writing creative prompts were gone, and books were no longer just stories, they were riddles that had to be dissected sentence by sentence until some vague theme was found. While I understand the importance of recognizing an author’s inspiration to write a book, being directed to find every sentence that can be related to a specific theme ruins the story-reading experience. Then as if ruining reading was not enough, writing was also turned into an arduous process with our assignments consisting of only research and persuasive essays. After having to trudge through two books from different authors, both of which I was unable to enjoy, having to write a research paper comparing themes the two books shared was an extremely unwelcome task. We were told to write according to the rubric if we wanted to receive an “A” and pass the class, so composition risks and original thought were replaced by quoted passages from the books with a filler sentence or two accompanying the quote to try and piece together two quotes that I knew had no real …show more content…
In fact that fire was rekindled when I transferred into my first theater class and was introduced to script writing. Writing a theater script for the first time brought back all the desires I had when I was in middle school, and I was able to create a story by only listing dialogue and stage movements. Although it may seem simplistic compared to a full-fledged novel, I was able to accomplish everything I wanted and create meaningful relations and purposes for characters. Seeing theater as a bastion of expression and creativity I took the class all four years of high school. More importantly the class boosted my self-esteem in regards to my writing skills and I actually felt as though I was a good writer when I had parts of my scripts used our student-run plays. Theater required creative writing and I thoroughly enjoyed being encouraged to imagine and write once again. If I had not taken theater I am certain that my time in high school would have been a lot less enjoyable and my writing skills would have not improved as much as they could