My Negative Voice

I fully intended using this blog entry to pre-write, as seen in chapter4, before writing my second crappy draft. I need to write a second crappy draft because as we were doing the writing exercises in class on monday, I realized (that) my first story did not fulfill the requirements for a personal narrative. It did not clearly exhibit an old self to new self pattern, nor were my feelings about it strong enough to write about it. Thankfully, I quickly found a passionate alternative that fits the bill perfectly. Unfortunately, I have taken medications that now prevent me attempting to think (or not think?). So, I shall reflect on FSTI chapters 1-4, 7-9. (What's wrong with 5 and 6?)

As I read this introductory college writing textbook, I am slightly appalled. Where is all of this information coming from?! Why have we not learned it yet? Do the curriculum writers feel that younger students aren't ready for this level of writing? If I had known this earlier, I might enjoy writing papers more, and I might have written them better! I recently read through copies of my papers throughout my career as a writer. Sometimes, I didn't even recognize that it was me speaking. I also was unsure as to the meaning of some of the words I used. Chapter 3 has taught me otherwise. Voice is very important and it MUST be pure, clean, and innocent (yes, I know I could edit these extra adjectives out, deal). If it needs to be cleaned up to be more formal later during the editing stage, this is fine. I really need to work on letting my voice come through.

I could rant all day about the idiots who came up with our educational system. Really, it's my pet peeve. Students need to be held to a higher standard. Unfortunately, the way it works is, by the time you get up to the highest level of English class in high school, there are only 21 kids in the class. Yes, I know this is technically a college class, but still. If they would have taught us all how to write better freshman year, middle school, elementary school, bah humbug, even kindergarten, maybe CIS English would be the norm. I'm just saying...

Please excuse my negativity. I was working on letting my voice come through in a conversational way?