How I See Myself as a Writer 1

How I See Myself as a Writer

Gerald E. Bettega

University of Central Florida

How I See Myself as a Writer 2

How I See Myself as a Writer

I have never really seen myself as a writer. Most of what I write is for my classes, such as

note-taking, short response answers, and essays. I don’t think that this class has changed how I

have seen myself as a writer, but I do think that this class has opened my eyes to a lot of different

types of writing. I do think that at one point in my life, there may have been a time where if

things had gone differently, I would have still considered myself a writer, but I was a very young

and dumb boy during this, so I most likely took what happened in a poor way.

Pressure of Writing

When I was in the 2nd grade, I loved the days when the teacher allowed us to write

whatever we wanted to. I had no trouble filling up pages in my notebook to tell a story that I

made up or not. Of course, it wasn’t the best writing in the world, as it was most likely just me

describing a bunch of things that were around me, similar to the My Immortal fanfiction. My

teacher would let us volunteer to read our stories to the class, but I never wanted to, as I would

rather keep them to myself. Unfortunately for me, one day, my teacher called me up to “check on

how my writing was going” and instead read my story to the class, which I did not want. Because

I was quite young at that time, I had somehow come up with the thought that my teacher was

doing that to embarrass me in front of the class, which then caused me to dislike a lot of free

writing.

In the writing “Sponsors of Literacy,” by Deborah Brandt, she states, “But the ideological

pressure of sponsors affects many private aspects of writing processes as well as public aspects

of finished texts,” (Brandt, 1998, p. 183). My experience can connect to this quote by Deborah

Brandt because the pressure from my teacher, my literary sponsor, affected my own private
How I See Myself as a Writer 3

aspect of writing. Before that moment, I had fun writing. Unfortunately, after the embarrassment

of what had happened, my young brain decided that it would be bad if something like that

happened again, so I stopped writing as much. Due to that, I became uninterested in writing,

which could be considered a private aspect of my writing process. It is probably unfortunate that

this had happened as well because if this hadn’t happened, then I think I would have still enjoyed

writing.

Learning to Write Essays

When I got into the 5th grade, my teacher introduced us to a new form of writing, essay

writing. This teacher helped us learn about argumentative essays and persuasive, as well as how

to use and cite text in our essay. In “Sponsors of Literacy,” Deborah Brandt writes “Sponsors, as

we ordinarily think of them, are powerful figures who bankroll events or smooth the way for

initiates,” (Brandt, 1998, p. 167). Brandt is saying that our literacy sponsors have the information

and supplies readily available for those they are teaching in order to bring them to a higher level

of literacy knowledge. My teacher had information and examples on how to write better essays,

in which we put into practice ourselves.

One thing that teacher taught us was a method to plan out an essay, that being the BMME

method, short for Beginning, Middle, Middle, and End. It’s a pretty simple concept where you

list out the points that you are going to make for your beginning paragraph, the middle

paragraphs, and the conclusion paragraph. I have always found it easier to sort out my thoughts

and ideas with this method, and I’m glad that my teacher showed us how to do this. If my teacher

didn’t teach us about this method and how to write essays, I don’t think I would do too well in

my English classes.

CONCLUSION
How I See Myself as a Writer 4

I have had my ups and downs with writing, and it has changed how I view writing today.

Even with all the writing that I have done, I would still not consider myself a writer. I think that a

writer would be someone who enjoys writing and does it often in their free time, not including

text messages or notes or any of the like. Before this class I never saw myself as a writer, and I

don’t think I ever will as I only write when it is necessary for a class. In the past I would

sometimes read something that would make me want to write a story, but I never put it into

action, and most of my reading is class notes and manga. Obviously, writing and reading is a

necessity for everyone, as future jobs will most likely require us to read and write, no matter

what your profession is. Reading is useful for following instructions, and writing would be useful

for writing reports.

With the help of reading, one will be able to figure out what they may have to write

about. Reading can also give inspiration to others for things that they may want to try doing,

which is thanks to those who wrote what that person read. With the skill of writing, someone can

even build their own worlds for others to enjoy, or they can use writing as a way to put their

ideas out in the open. Writing can also be used as a way for someone to vent out their feelings.

There’s so much more with reading and writing, and it is used in our everyday life with things

like texting or social medias.

To put things simply, I would not consider myself a writer and I don’t think that I ever

will, but I’m glad that I have the ability to read and write whatever I need or want. I would not

have gotten this far in life without this skill which I have fine-tuned with the help of many of my

teachers throughout the years.

How I See Myself as a Writer 5

References

Brandt, D. (1998). National Council of Teachers of English, Vol49(Issue2), 165-185.

Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/358929?

sid=primo&saml_data=eyJzYW1sVG9rZW4iOiI5NDlmNTQxMS1mNDc5LTQ1OWEt

YTIxMS00ZTdlYzQ2Zjg2NjEiLCJlbWFpbCI6IlNhbWFudGhhLkdvbnphbGV6QHVjZi

5lZHUiLCJpbnN0aXR1dGlvbklkcyI6WyI5ZGIzN2JiNC1mMzIwLTQ2YTMtODVmMi

03ODVhZWQxOGEzZTMiXX0#metadata_info_tab_contents