Anna Cabell

1/14/15
Reading/Writing Background

Reading and writing has always been a touchy subject for me. My feelings range from
very fun to stressful, from encouraging to cowering away. Here is my insight on the two,
welcome to my love-hate relationship.
Writing use to be fun, creative way to pass time. When I was a child everyone had a diary
or notebook of some sort that we scribbled our feelings and imagination into. I would write
stories and would always get penalized for never having an ending. Now it seems that I struggle
to make it to the minimal length requirement. Once writing became given as a punishment, it
stopped being as fun. I never understood making a child write an essay on how to properly
follow the rules. It seemed that an active discussion would be the better decision so that the child
can comprehend not copy down how you want them to act. More or less the view on writing will
dramatically change. In I Wont use Writing as a Punishment. I Wont by Peter Clark, he states
that doing so causes a perpetual association between suffering and the act of writing an essay.
When teachers introduce new prompts we now all sigh with annoyance. Writing has become a
burden. We view it as time consuming and not time fulfilling.
Another thing that I did not like about some of my English classes was the fact of looking
up words in books. In elementary and early middle school reading was a fun activity. For every
book we read we would go to our teacher and explain what the book was about and we would be
rewarded. The words that we did not understand we could pass by knowing that the following
lines would give us some insight on the meaning. By the later part of middle school to high
school we were introduced to the stop and research method. This meant that any word that we

did not know we had to stop reading and look it up. Often times I would get hung up on the word
and how it works in the sentence. We also studied book vocabulary and had quizzes on them.
Then came along the most anxiety filled task, reading out loud. It was embarrassing when
confronted with a word that you didnt know how to pronounce or understand its meaning. John
Molt said that before long many children associate books and reading with mistakes, real or
feared, and penalties and humiliation., ultimately this embarrassment would lead me to hate
reading. Once an adamant reader, I now never read unless it is for a class.
My two most influential English classes would be my AP 11th grade and 12th grade class.
My 11th grade English class was made up of thirty people. My teacher was very strict when it
came grammar. Every two weeks we would start a new piece of literature and write an essay on
the novel or play. Like many of the students in class, the work load became very stressful. We
would rush through books and write an essay filled with fluff trying to obtain the five paragraph
rule. I began to believe that this was normal for a college course and became accustom to it. My
12th grade English class was a completely different atmosphere. There was nine of us in class. We
read a few books and plays and discussed them in group during class. We would ask questions
about what we did not understand and talk over parts that were interesting to us. Over the year
we were to read four different books on our own time. These books were not to be a class
reading but to help prepare us for the final AP test. When it came to writing, our professor would
give a prompt that could be loosely interpreted. She would give us free reign to create. Once
written we would peer edit. This professor was not focused on grammar but more on the writing
itself. My 12th grade professor helped me realize that writing is a lot different than what I had
been use to. I would consider her a participationist, she allowed us to get engaged in our class
and writings. She gave the student the ability to explore their own writing style. I also like the

idea of peer editing. Like Donald McAndrew stated in his essay That Isnt What We Did in High
School, peer response creates a minisocial constructionist world. I think it is good to allow
your writing to be read by other peers, to understand what needs to be worked on and what is
good. Allowing others to read your paper is the point of writing.