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Model #7

Reclaiming the Joy of Writing

Is writing joyful or painful? English writing annoys me. All writing assignments have been taking my nights with good sleep away from me. It was only two years ago that I wrote an essay in English for the first time. Since then I have been struggling with English writing and trying to avoid any chance to write as much as I can. I almost forgot that, as a kid in Japan, I was not able to fall sleep without writing a journal. My first experience was such a joy. I am trying to reclaim the joy in my English writing, although I am still far away from the joy.

My first joy of writing was a letter to my father who was busy working. Japanese employees always work hard and come home late. In this sense, my father was a typical Japanese office worker. I hardly saw him during weekdays. When I was young, I liked my father more than my mother. We had a connection that was stronger and more unifying than that with my mother. I always wanted to tell my father how my day was. However, my mother never let me stay up late and I always had to go to bed before he came home. So, I started to write a diary. I wrote about everything that happened to me on that day in my diary: what I learned at school, what I played with my friends, what I had for lunch…etc. Also, I remember that my diary always ended with the same sentence which was "I love you, dad!" It was really fun to write about everything that I had done that day. I wrote in my diary every night in my bed and fell sleep while imaging my father's face.

I kept a journal for more than ten years. Even though it was not formal writing, keeping a journal everyday also helped my writing at school. My composition at school was always filled with expression and I never got tired of writing. When I was in fifth grade, we went to watch a musical as a school trip. The musical was about the forest and a girl who had to find a flower for her mean step mother. I still remember the songs in the musical. I loved to sing those songs to my parents. We wrote a paper about the musical and I applied to enter a composition contest through my elementary school. Fortunately, my work was rewarded and exhibited at the musical theater. My mother was very proud of me and took me to the theater to see my commendation. I believe that this was my best experience as a writer in my life. Even though I did not have many opportunities to write essays in the middle school or high school, I still liked to write essays and I had confidence in my writing. However, when I start writing essays in my second language, which is English, my confidence in writing diminishes in a moment.

When I wrote an essay in English for the first time, I was in Japan and I was studying for a TOEFL test to get into a college in the United States. The TOEFL test is an English test for non-English speakers to get into American colleges. The test consists of four sections: reading, grammar, listening and writing. In writing section, I was given a topic in the test and had only half an hour to write about the topic. The topic that I was given in the test was not complicated. It was "How do movies or television influence people's behavior?" I felt lucky when I read the topic because I was very familiar with movies and television. I soon came up with many ideas; however, since I did not know how to organize the ideas in a limited time, I panicked and was able to write only four lines in the first test. As a result, my first writing score for the English test was two points out of six points. I was shocked because I had never received such a low score on my writing before.

Afterwards, I started to practice writing essays in English. Fortunately, there were many sample topics, which are similar to the topic I was given in my first test, on the TOEFL website. I emailed my essays to my host mother, who lives in Portland. My host mother sent them back to me with helpful comments. She corrected my paper in both global and local view. Even though I received many red marks from her, I really appreciated her way to correct my paper. My English writing skill was improving a little by little. I finally received three points out of six points on my third attempt. This was not very good score; however, it was high enough in combination with other scores I received, and I was able to pass the test completely. I was then accepted to Eastern Oregon University.

My first paper in college in the United States was for an education class. Of course, I had never written a paper as an assignment before. Therefore, I did not know how to start the paper. When I looked around at my classmates, I was very embarrassed because I realized that my paper did not have a title, my name, or a date. I did not know anything about the standards of American writing. It was amazing that my first term in American college went well without any writing skills. I believe this was because I was able to write essays for the education class, which was about cultural awareness, with my personal experiences as a teacher's aide at elementary school in the United States. In the essays I developed strong basis for comparison of American and Japanese education.

Throughout my first term at Eastern, I found a major difference between American style essays and Japanese style essays. Japanese writers are taught to put vague ideas in our thesis and the main idea or opinion always goes at the end of essay. On the other hand, American style essays always begin with a distinct idea or opinion. Since I was unfamiliar with writing American style essays, I hesitated to state my strong opinion in the beginning of essays. For example, the topic for the final paper in the education class was "a controversial issue on Educational field." I wrote about a language immersion program because I had enough information through my experience. However, it was hard for me to take a position on whether I supported the program or not. I was always afraid of what other people thought about my opinion. Also, as an ESL student, I faced challenges with regards to grammar and structure. Since I was afraid of making these types of mistakes, I always felt stuck and lost my ideas. As a result, I required more time to write papers, even those as small as two pages.

In my second term in Eastern, I took my first writing class, which was WR115. It was not easy for me to take the class because I knew English writing requires enormous time and makes me stressed out. I still did not know much about how to write American style essays. However, even though I spent so much time writing essays, I learned some strategies and organization in the class. I did brainstorming and typed all my ideas as a list instead of sitting in front of computer for long time trying to make the complete introduction. Moreover, I worked on so much revision for each paper. Every time I got my paper back, I saw many red marks of evaluation by the teacher on my paper. I thought that meant my writing was not good. Therefore, I could not believe what my assessment form for the class said. "Excellent Work!" - This student's work shows readiness for college-level writing. When I received this assessment form, I asked my self, 'Am I a college-level writer?' No, I still did not think so; however, I am proud of myself that I spent much time and made my best effort even with sacrificing my sleep.

My sleepless nights carried into the next term when I took WR121. This class also gave me a hard time because I had to learn more details about English-style writing. Everything was new to me so I was soon absorbed in this class. I also learned how useful it was to work together with peers. In the class, we were divided into small groups and shared papers. In this way, I learned more not only from peers' comments on my paper but also from evaluating someone else's paper. Also, I saw a tutor more than three times for just one assignment. She helped me to develop more vivid sentences throughout our conversations.

Now I am in WR220, which is about a tutoring writing, I am very proud of myself being in this class. I could not imagine that I was able to be a tutor for English writing when I was working on TOEFL test in Japan. I am still seeing a tutor every week and still having a very difficult time with my English writing. However, I am happy to see my improvement in my "writer's autobiography," which I have done both for WR115 and WR220. I had many sleepless nights since I started learning English writing. In order to become a better writer in English, I realize that I need to write as much as I can. This surely will help me to adjust to English writing standards. Someday I will write a journal in English every night for my joy just like I did long time ago.