Given free time, I have always picked up a book for entertainment, never have I picked up a pen. As long as I can remember, writing was a chore: another task to check off my list, some homework to complete before I can return to my favorite book. My ambivalent attitude may seem to belie my love for the written word, but in truth it originates from reading. As I attempted to replicate the serpentine sentences of my favorite books, my quest for knowledge inhibited my own voice, leaving me trapped within a scrupulous need to obey guidelines that I saw as rules. Despite recent attempts to escape these inhibitions, I have not yet found a love for writing to match my attitude towards reading.
As I read my favorite books, I began to wonder what clandestine knowledge separated me from my favorite authors. I assumed my teachers must know. Unfortunately, I was young, and elementary school teachers are not AP English teachers. What we were told then: Commas go wherever you would take a breath while reading and never use semicolons or …show more content…
As my education continued I was introduced to rhetoric, and told to vary my syntax. I never admitted that I did not know what these words meant. I was bombarded with new words: Asyndeton and polysyndeton were among them. However, my teachers and I stood beneath the tower of babel, almost to heaven. If only we spoke the same language. I dutifully memorized the new vocabulary, and dutifully forgot it after the test; these new strategies never superseded my old rules. My writing was only weighed down further, as I adapted a style that seemed, at first, to be polished. Each sentence had a similar length, a similar syntax, a similar inflection. Every essay was monotonous, boring. My teachers had pity, I suppose, or perhaps they thought it was the best I could do. Every essay was marked with an A. Having been rewarded, content in my success, and still following those unremitting rules, I settled into my torpid
As I read my favorite books, I began to wonder what clandestine knowledge separated me from my favorite authors. I assumed my teachers must know. Unfortunately, I was young, and elementary school teachers are not AP English teachers. What we were told then: Commas go wherever you would take a breath while reading and never use semicolons or …show more content…
As my education continued I was introduced to rhetoric, and told to vary my syntax. I never admitted that I did not know what these words meant. I was bombarded with new words: Asyndeton and polysyndeton were among them. However, my teachers and I stood beneath the tower of babel, almost to heaven. If only we spoke the same language. I dutifully memorized the new vocabulary, and dutifully forgot it after the test; these new strategies never superseded my old rules. My writing was only weighed down further, as I adapted a style that seemed, at first, to be polished. Each sentence had a similar length, a similar syntax, a similar inflection. Every essay was monotonous, boring. My teachers had pity, I suppose, or perhaps they thought it was the best I could do. Every essay was marked with an A. Having been rewarded, content in my success, and still following those unremitting rules, I settled into my torpid