Matthew S Ruff

Professor Birkett

ENG Comp 1

Throughout my life and my school career, I have used writing to explore many subjects. Either

as a hobby or for school, I found that writing is a valuable trait. I do not enjoy writing reports,

because many times the prompts are limited. But, I do enjoy writing poetry and song in my free time.

Even as a current college student, the writing that I dislike doing is the writing that is required for

classes. My dislike is attributed to MLA format mostly. Articulated, written ideas seemed unnatural for

most of my life, until I completed high school. Although I find writing in school pedantic, I am very

passionate about poetry and lyrics, because with those two types of writing, its about what is between

the lines that touches my soul. I get better at writing the more I do it, but I do not consider it

pleasurable.

In elementary school, my English teacher saw my potential to be a writer, and decided to teach

me the English alphabet. Since that day, I've never been the same. As a youngster, my teachers would

explain to me the difference between a noun and a pronoun and I couldn't help feel like it was a waste

of time. I was only five, but I could tell that writing wasn't for me. Finger painting was my expertise, as

was using my imagination and I loved it. I was too young to appreciate what comprehension and

literacy allows you to achieve later in life.

High school taught me many fundamentals of writing such as paragraphs, sentence structure

and audience. Writing in high school seemed easy, as there wasn't a specific format for papers. Each

teacher had different expectations of writing, usually ending with a research paper that took an entire

quarter to create, and made my eyes bleed. But, alas I was more concerned with football and girls to

really appreciate the writing fundamentals that my teachers conveyed. Darn hormones! Unfortunately,

no matter how amazing my Spider-Man valentines were, they were always misspelled, and I found out
then that there was nothing romantic about misspelling simple words.

Four years have passed since my high school career in writing; now I am in my freshman year

of college. Now I finally realize why I learned the things I did in high school. Knowledge builds on

itself, and the same goes for writing. College writing has a format you must adhere to, and there is

more writing to be done than ever! Now I hope that with a better understanding of the building blocks

of writing, I can appreciate what my teachers were trying to instill in me at a young age.

My love for songs and poetry are the only things that have stayed constant through all these

years. These formats taught me the meaning behind a set of words and how the words directly

influence emotion. Poetry and song have helped people to open their hearts, and have also have shown

to be quite therapeutic. Now, my valentines are top notch. My only regret is that I do not have more

time to expand my portfolio, because once I grew up my distractions went from football to a steady job.

From job applications to computer applications, writing is very much a crucial part in my

everyday life. Between the time I was taught the alphabet and now, it has been a circle of learning and I

have become more adept at writing. Even though I still haven’t written my song that will eventually

lead to my stardom, and I haven't perfected the art of writing manuscripts, I am working towards it.