Fourth Entry

I was set on writing my personal essay about my first screenplay, until Friday in class. Our recent assignment where we had to bring in an object that described us got me wondering why I loved vacationing with my family in Bar Harbor, Maine. I was telling my mom on the phone about the personal essay we have to write and I told her what two topics I had in mind: my first screenplay or my summer in Bar Harbor. She is a very tentative listener and as I began to tell her about both topics, I realized that I had more questions about Bar Harbor that I would like to delve into.
I started to ask how a place that I absolutely dreaded two years ago captured my heart within a period of two months. I don’t know if it was the scenery, the people, the town, or the array of activities you can occupy yourself with that made me fall in love with Bar Harbor, but I want to find out. The more I thought about it, I realized that it may have been my family that helped my adoration for that small town grow. Living with two brothers isn’t easy, especially when you are stuck in a house with very few places to be alone and no TV. When we first arrived at our house in Bar Harbor, the days seemed to last forever. We sat around and wished we were back in our house in Kingwood, however, my parents new more than I gave them credit for. Two blocks away from our house were tennis courts, and a volleyball court. My parents soon bought us the sports equipment need and our days began to be filled with exciting games and homemade tournaments to see who the best athlete was. Rainy days were filled with monopoly and rummy. My love for Bar Harbor began to grow with the admiration and love that grew stronger for my family.

Third Entry

I have never realized how many writerly roles I have. Obviously, I have never thought about it, but I enjoyed this exercise because it allows you to observe the different qualities and traits you feel comfortable sharing with certain people. As a daughter, I talk to my parents mostly on the phone or my e-mail. I am not afraid to be myself or make mistakes; however when I write an e-mail to my dad, I always make sure the letter is to the point and grammatically correct. For example I recently asked my dad about a recreational event on campus that I wanted to participate in and his answer was “yes, please do it”. He is very concise and does not bother with details. He is a very busy man and I always try to write as professionally as I can around him. When I e-mail my mom, the composition of my e-mails is very different. She never worries about grammar or spelling. When I write to her, my sentences are formulated as if I were speaking to her on the phone. There are short sentences and long sentences with commas and breaks all over the place. I generally have my punctuation in the right place but I never stress over a comma. When writing to my parents, my style is very different. However, when I speak to them on the phone, I speak to them both the same way.
As a sister, I have many different ways of communicating. When I speak to my older brother I usually talk with him on facebook. However, when I say talk, the conversation is usually one-sided. He never responds to the letters that I meticulously write, and if he does it is with a one word answer. I asked him how school was, thinking he would tell me about his classes, and when he responded he simply wrote “fine”. I was naïve in thinking that he would actually tell me anything because he is not a very talkative person unless you are face-to-face. My little brother is completely different. I generally text him or e-mail him. I am very relaxed when I write him because we get along great and he doesn’t care if I mess up on spelling. He is however, the only person I will ever write to using the word “dude”.
When I talk to my close friends, I use text messaging, e-mail, and facebook. When I write to them I am very relaxed because they know my personality. I can say just about anything and I know how they will interpret it. One of my best friends spent last semester traveling with her father so I e-mailed her and told her blatantly to “get a facebook”. Depending on the context of the letter, most people might think that someone is demanding, but her response was “I’m trying, but it’s hard when I am traveling the world with my dad”. I could picture her saying that to me because I have known her for a while.
As a student, I am generally a very good note taker. I take as many notes as possible because I get nervous about the material that is fair game for tests. I also write a lot! Besides the daily exercises we write in English, I am in a media writing class which consists of writing small stories and editing pages out of workbooks. In the media class my teacher was recently telling us about correct grammar usage and I wrote down the definition for a noun, which I am pretty sure I know.
As a writer, my content and structure is constantly changing because I write to many different people. I try to incorporate everything I have learned into my writing but I adapt it based on who I am writing to.

Second Entry

I believe that I can learn to write well because I have confidence in my abilities. With practice and more attention, I think my writing can improve even more. I criticize my writing too much because it is hard to write something and not reread it multiple times with differing opinions. After reading Ballenger's idea of suspended judgment I thought that no one would believe what he was saying. There was no way I could write a paper and not worry about what grade I would get, but when we began doing exercises in class, I could see what he meant. I am slowly beginning to get more confident with my abilities to just write. I agree with Ballenger's statement that "the most important thing that influences a writer's growth is believing he or she can learn to write well". I think that by boosting your confidence in writing, you will feel more motivated to write without worrying who will criticize your work. Like Ballegener points out in ch. 1, by not criticizing the way you write when you do an assignment, your belief in your abilities as a writer will begin to get stronger. With that belief, your skills will begin to improve. By focusing more on what you have to say, instead of how many mistakes you make, you will be able to realize your stronger points. Finding out your better points of writing will allow you to find and develop some of your lesser skills as well. By finding your flaws, you have the chance to enhance your writing altogether. I think that Ballenger does want anyone to limit his or her abilities because they are afraid of criticism from others, as well as themselves. Every improvement made with writing adds satisfaction and confidence to the skills and the capabilities we possess.

First Entry

My name is Breanna Kelly and I am a freshman at Texas Christian University. I am from Kingwood, Texas which is right outside of Houston and I am majoring in advertising/public relations and minoring in radio-television-film. I am fairly confident with my writing abilities because I have had a lot of great teachers and opportunities to improve my writing. Outside of school I like to write advertising slogans, commercials, and screenplays. However, I always find it difficult to finish a screenplay because I can never get a story to fit in chronological order. I also write a lot of e-mails to my family and friends and sometimes I write hand written letters to my grandparents because they lack the technical skills needed to use a computer. I enjoy writing outside of traditional school papers because you have the freedom and ability to create a story and shape every part of it. Writing gives you the ability to create a story that can be interpreted by anyone based on his or her beliefs. Novels and screenplays allow the writer and reader to become anything or anyone they want. I normally like to read fictional books because they are powerful tools that allow me an escape from the real world. They broaden my imagination as well. That is one reason I believe that writing is important. I think writing is a very important skill to know in life because whether someone is writing a letter to a boss, writing an e-mail to a friend, or someone has a job revolves around writing, like advertising, writing is huge part of everyday life. My high school teachers probably had the most influence on who I am as writer because I always had to make sure I tailored my writing to their class. They taught me more than just correct punctuation and usage of words because they gave me constructive criticism that helped me focus on what I needed to improve. They also gave me a basic method of outlining so that my papers would be more organized and easier to write. Usually when I write, I set up an outline with my thesis statement, main points, quotations, and conclusion. This strategy of writing usually is what I always use because it has always worked with the assignments I have been given. However, when I write for enjoyment, I usually just write in paragraph form so that my thoughts can flow onto the paper. I never really liked analyzing the novels I read in class because I always had trouble interpreting what the author really meant in the text, however, if there was one thing I could change about my writing I would like to be better at analyzing text. When I have to analyze novels in papers, I tend to summarize the book more than I examine the text. I would like to improve my critical reading skills because I think it is important to my future studies. I have read, understand, and agree with the course syllabus which I see as the contract for our course.