I’ve just finished my Research and Writing course at Whitworth tonight. During our last night, our instructor took some time with us individually to solicit feedback about class, and to give us personalized feedback about her impressions of our writing. I found what she had to say enlightening and that I’m not really what I write, when I write for class.
I’m not really into writing essays. It probably goes back to that “think too much” thing, and the “test anxiety” I’ve had in the past. Here I am writing freely and coming through pretty clear, but when writing an essay, I seem to start “not being myself.” Subconsciously, I think I knew that was going on, but I think it took someone I respected, like my class instructor, to tell me what was really happening and make me see it up close.
Part of our class was spent on our own time posting messages to a discussion board. I did this with quite some zeal. I felt I had a lot of experience that I could relate, and in many discussions I felt I had something to say. My on line writing for the class was read by the instructor and gave her a good impression of who I was through my writing. Unfortunately when she started reading my essays, she started to wonder who had written them because they didn’t seem to be written by the same person.
The point she was making, was that my essay writing was very different than my personal writing. She was encouraging me to try and figure out why I was being different, and to try and overcome that difference so that more of “me” was coming out in my essays. I found it to be some pretty interesting feedback and we talked for a while, with me “analyzing” like I tend to do which was probably the wrong thing to do.
I’m sure my essay writing is stilted, because when writing papers outside of just personal expression, I tend to write in a technical fashion. Hmm, seems as though I’ve transferred that to my essay writing, and I need to stop. As I’m writing this, the words are coming freely and without much “pre-thought” to it. This is the kind of thing I need to bring to my essays. So from now on, I need to keep writing in my blog here, and when I do writing for class, I need to try and write in a similar fashion that I do here.
I think it was very valuable feedback, as I continue to work toward my degree and will be doing a lot of writing in the next two years. I’m a bit embarrassed about it all really, and I do need to concentrate on it more in the future, or perhaps I need to -not- think about it so much and just try to “be myself” when I write for class.
I need to get “me” into my essay writing, wish me luck.
Asa Jay
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