I am, and forever will be, a life-long writer.  Writing has been a part of my life since I can remember.  When my mom instilled a passion for reading in me, it wasn’t really a surprise that I was drawn to words in any form.  One of my earliest memories of writing is when I was around four and wanted to write a book for my brother.  I was in preschool and he would be born in a few months.  During those years, I was also an avid color-er and had a box of crayons and a stack of coloring books I would go through at the kitchen table while my mom cooked.  With language being so limited for me at that time, my way of writing a story was to rip the pages I had colored out of my coloring book and staple them together.  While I hadn’t written a thing, in my mind I had made a book, I was creative, and had bound pages in my hand which represented a story.  What is ironic is that it actually did tell a story, since most of my coloring books were Disney princesses and detailed the plot of the movie in chronological order.  As I learned to master language, I began writing and illustrating my own stories on blank computer paper.  While making the cover was always the most fun parts, I developed characters, conflict, plot, and resolution, all fairly simple for a Kindergarten-er, but a story none the less.

One of the things I am most proud of as a writer is how much my style has developed.  Especially because most of the writing I have done is academic writing, style is an element I think is imperative to writing, yet there are not many opportunities to practice it in the classroom; however, I have also met challenges as a writer as well, such as the all too common writers block, and at times struggling with finding the proper language to adequately express myself.  While it’s not so much of a new goal I have for writing, it is a constant goal nonetheless:  I want to write more—there’s always an excuse not to, but because it is something I am truly passionate about, if I wanted to, I would make the time.

As I have changed over the years, so has my writing process, which I have found to be exciting and rewarding.  When I first started writing papers in high school, I would typically sit down at the computer, write, and hand it in.  Thankfully, they always managed to come out good, but it wasn’t until college that I really started to use, or even understand the writing process.  I feel that incorporating all aspects of the writing process into my personal writing process has made me a stronger writer and helped me to develop solid editing skills.  Working as an English tutor, I always enforced that while prewriting and revision may seem like a waste of time, they are imperative components which allow writing to reach its fullest potential.  It is interesting because it was not until recently that I added peer review as a part of my writing process, and have reaped the benefits of suggestions and constructive criticism; specifically, in this class, my peers have majorly assisted in helping my writing be the best it can.

My first-hand experiences as a writer and my developing identity as a teacher-writer have helped inform my teaching and planning.  As a future English teacher, it is inevitable that I will incorporate writing into my classroom, but have learned that there is a plethora of ways that this can be accomplished through methods other than academic writing.  I think that it would be interesting to implement some of my own first-hand experiences as a writer into the classroom, such as freewriting, which has always been a release for me, and can be a good tool for low-stakes writing.  Furthermore, my developing identity as a teacher-writer will be imperative to my planning.  Because I personally enjoy writing, I hope to instill that passion in my students and teach them that while writing may at times be difficult, it does not have to be unenjoyable.   As a teacher-writer, I also want to demonstrate writing in the classroom, and participate in the writing activities that I assign them to show them that this is not a pointless activity I am making them endure alone, and that becoming a good writer is an ongoing process.

Therefore, as a current writer and a future teacher-writer, some goals I have for myself include: to write at least once a week for pleasure, to keep writing clear and concise, incorporate different formats of writing in the classroom, to instill passion in my students, and to commit myself to the craft.