Essay: I Learned About Writing: When I Thought I'd Hate It!

Writing, the one thing I despised the most. I hated it when my teacher would tell us to hand in an essay. I get frustrated when I just have a blank mind and stare at a laptop screen for ages trying to think of a good topic. There have been so many times in the past that I’ve wracked my brain attempting to come up with something interesting, before realising it’s actually as boring as watching the first day of The Open Championship – I really hate golf. I remember in 3rd year, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to write about my basketball tournament. Turns out I was wrong. That topic was not remotely compelling to an outsider. Nevertheless, the day finally arrived when I wrote an essay that I thought was the one and got good feedback from it. This had really enhanced my confidence within writing. Writing about my summer holiday was so easy – the words just flowed from my hand. I believed that I hated writing although I somehow began to like it slightly, as I started to realise it wasn’t bad as I thought.
My attitude towards writing changed when I went into National 5 English last year. The workload increased, along with the expectations and pressure and I realised I had to raise the bar. The first time this dawned on me was the first lesson on essay writing in 4th year. When my teacher told us that’s what we’d be doing the next day my heart sank. I knew the nervous anticipation would overshadow all of my classes that day. I worried that I’d sit staring into space, once again unable to conjure up an interesting topic. As I walked into the class, I felt nervous and anxious because I didn’t want to let myself or my teacher down. It turns out I didn’t need to worry. My teacher started the lesson and told us we’d be writing an essay on our summer holiday. I felt instantly relieved for once I actually had something to write about! I think the reason that I felt differently about this essay than others I had written before was because I really enjoyed reminiscing about my amazing holiday in Italy. A holiday that seemed to go by faster than LeBron James sprinting down the paint getting ready to fly and slam the ball into the basket. This was one essay I definitely wouldn’t hate writing.
We would get organised into a group as we would first read one another’s essay and then comment on it. I was assured with the first essay I produced. However, the pupils in the group were great critics. They became Michael Owen commenting on Ibrahimovic missing an open shot at goal. My confidence was relegated to the bottom division. This essay I had put a lot of effort into had got shredded into pieces by the other members of my group. In spite of that, I learned I shouldn’t always trust the opinions of my peers as the grade given by the teacher won me promotion back to the top tier. I, nevertheless, relished most periods in English apart from when the teacher had told us to work together as a group: the dread I felt anticipating the group feedback part of the class began to overshadow the joy I had started to experience while writing. I discerned that I, as well as my confidence, shouldn’t be affected negatively by criticism. Instead, I should use it as constructive feedback rather than worrying that they’re trying to fire shots at me.
I had done well in the first essay so I was confident when the teacher asked me to write a second. This essay was much more difficult to write, as it was an essay about Macbeth. The fact that I could not understand Shakespeare’s vocabulary very well made this a Sisyphean task. We were told to write our first draft within two weeks and as I handed it in I was curious, nervous and thrilled simultaneously. Sadly, when the time came to see what mark I got those positive feelings quickly dissipated only to be replaced by disillusionment. I received a failing grade on the paper but I made the decision not to let this demotivate me. As it was only a first draft I felt I could still do well if I stay on the right lane and put in the effort.
Just before I started to write the final draft, I read an article about the greatest basketball player the game had ever seen – Michael Jordan. This piece of writing helped me to realise that he hadn’t always fulfilled his potential. In fact, Jordan did not make it into the college basketball team because his coach said he wasn’t good enough. Despite this, he didn’t give up. He worked as hard as he could to be the best that he could be. He became the best. This inspired me to work harder to achieve a higher scoring essay. So, looked back at my drafts noticing my mistakes and made the adjustments that had to be made. I also spoke to my teacher and she helped me to understand the text better. Keeping the alterations and annotations I noted down in mind, I put pen to paper and I had finally finished. I was filled with delight when the teacher handed me the essay to see that I had passed!
From these lessons, I realised our skills are not determined by whether we love or hate writing. Just because you start off hating doing something, doesn’t mean that you won’t one day begin to enjoy it. We will receive negative feedback and failing results at times. There will be times when we find that we are on the losing team. On the other hand, we will also earn passing results and praise from around us and, on occasion, we will even be given trophies and rewards. What is more important is to keep on developing as we learn. There is always room for improvement, even if we are bad at something the first few times we try it. Who knows, we might do a Michael Jordan and become one of the greatest. So turns out I’ve survived.