Another Year Gone By

Summer is here. As I said in my last post, the prospects of this year’s 3 month break are looking pretty great, but as the closing of this school year sinks in, I can’t help but to reflect back upon it. As always, there were good times and bad. One thing I can definitely say is that I learned this year, as one would hope to accomplish attending school.

In Non-Fiction Writing, I learned a lot about a variety of things and most importantly, I grew as a writer. At first, I was a little dismayed to learn that we were going to focus our studies solely on the personal essay. I had never been particularly fond of the personal essay. Sure, some were interesting to read, but a good deal more of them were not. In the prose of most personal essays, I found notes of self-importance and annoying justifications for one’s own actions that bothered me. I had convinced myself that the weak points of a bad personal essay were a fault of the genre of writing itself, and that these traits would be present in almost every personal essay. Non-Fiction Writing allowed me to explore actually good personal essays. These I liked. Some had a very personal, very real voice. Most of all, this voice was frank. I feel that in order to have a real, good essay, the writer shouldn’t be so concerned with whether they come off as totally likeable or righteous, compromising the truth and importance of their words. A personal essay should be an insight into a person, and that requires the writer to truly show the reader who they are, not who they want to be or who they think they should be. This class really allowed me to explore and find essays that could truly be called personal essays, and I am thankful for that.

As it was a writing class, I wrote a lot. I came in thinking, “Okay, I’ll write a couple of essays as usual. I’ll crank them out for the grade, but I doubt I’ll get anything out of writing them.” Not true. At first, I was quite uncomfortable writing personal essays and blog posts due to my fear that everything in the genre sounded pompous and narcissistic. Thus, it took a while to truly open up and enjoy writing in the class. While I am still not entirely comfortable writing almost entirely about myself, I’m getting there, and I think I’ve become much better at it. Being forced to reflect on my life in essays has allowed me to better grasp who I am. I have put into words what were once abstract thoughts. I have been given the opportunity to truly explore how I think and feel, which has been truly eye-opening.

My time in Non-Fiction Writing has been truly great. I feel that it is one of the few classes that I have taken that has truly allowed me to grow as a person. On top of that, I was given the opportunity to explore myself with little structure, allowing me to write and think about what is important to me. I would like to thank Ms. Majerus and all of my peers for making Non-Fiction Writing an incredibly memorable and magnificent class.