Writing Experiences of the Past

I never took ENC 1101, and it has been a few years since high school for me, but I do remember assignments I had and my experience writing them.

In high school, I was in the IB program. We had to write a lot for most of our classes and our teachers were fairly strict when it came to the quality of our writing. Because the teachers were so strict, it was always somewhat stressful to put together an important paper. It wasn't all stress though; I enjoyed most of the papers and essays we had to write because the students were allowed to choose the subject matter. Our teachers would usually give a list of topics to choose from or a set of books to comment on, all depending upon the class. In the IB program, in order to receive the IB diploma, any student has to complete an Extended Essay. I really enjoyed this essay because while it came with a huge list of guidelines, it also came with nearly total freedom on the topic. The only real problem with that particular paper was the fifteen page minimum!

The only sort of writing I dislike to any extreme are timed essays. My high school career was stuffed full of these types of essays too, in an effort to prepare us for the format of our final IB exams. Timed writing makes me feel panicked, there is no time to plan effectively and in my opinion, the writing is never an example of your best effort. Forty-five minutes versus three days of planning and revision produce very different results.

In general I enjoy writing, and so class papers have never been a source of much heartache for me. The topic of these papers, however, could (and have) make or break my ability to remain focused on writing them well.