Around, Here

I think the concept of a "multigenre paper" is fascinating. It certainly caters to more diverse student knowledge than confining student assignments to create one singular type of paper. I reflect back on many (if not all) of the papers I wrote in high-school - they were all informational/research papers. The thought of writing anything resembling a creative piece, especially in my college credit courses, was a foregone conclusion. We were taught to write in one kind of way - this one style of writing would provide "all we need" in our academic careers moving forward. Somehow I wound up specializing in creative writing during my undergrad. I remember taking my first poetry course during my freshman year and falling in love with it. I had never done any form of creative writing before, save for trying to write lyrics for my pseudo-christian metalcore band at the time (don't ask). I had never learned these skills, so I was far behind my fellow classmates, but

The further I dug into the Christiansen chapter, the more excited I became about the prospect of teaching writing in the schools. When I look back on my writing experiences during my time in high-school, I remember nothing but writing research papers. I wrote research papers for my college biology class, I wrote research papers for my college history and government courses, and I wrote research papers for my English courses. As I jumped right into my college composition coursework in 11th grade, I remember the goal was for us to be "college ready," meaning that we were to be professionals in regards to academic tone and citation formatting, specifically MLA. I was able to write some fun papers in these courses (I remember that my senior paper was 15 whopping pages of "Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams" nonsense, which culminated in the line "God bless America"), though I was far from a creative writer. I did not start writing creatively until college -

Grammar is weird. Especially as a future English teacher. I've heard plenty of people advocate for ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CORRECT GRAMMAR ALL THE TIME. Those people are nerds. It's a fickle concept. Coming from someone who knows grammar & usage fairly well, I oftentimes intentionally misuse it. Not so much in things like, per-se, essays and other academic writings (like this post, perhaps), but I freely misuse and omit grammar in social media and text messages. I do this in an attempt to articulate different tonality and delivery in my messages, and I'm certainly not the only one that does this. A lack of total grammatical correctness, to me, articulates a certain warmth and familiarity in speech. It is comfortable, unregulated; I would even go so far as to say that it is free-flowing. People that are stuck in the rut of typing EVERY SINGLE THING WITH 100% CORRECT GRAMMAR come off as stuck up and standoffish (to me) (and others, I'm sure) (undoubtedly). I think

If I were an impartial spectator to the development of my opinions regarding teaching and I were asked what I thought my opinion would be regarding whether or not the Five Paragraph Essay, I would have laughed in my own face and walked out of the room, leaving myself alone behind. ...that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, contrary to what you may think that I think, I like the idea of the five paragraph essay. Here's why. While I do tend to lean towards going against the grain of traditional teaching measures, I think there are plenty of merits in teaching the traditional structure of the five paragraph essay. At its core, I think teaching this structure allows students the opportunity to construct their arguments in a concise manner that follows a logical progression, as opposed to letting students essentially vomit each and every thought that runs through their heads onto a page and call it writing. Writing is a bit more refined and eloquent than word vomit, and I do wish