Learning To Write

Learning To Write


Brinne Dawes

3rd Ms. Carder



Sitting in a room surrounded by a sandbox, crayons, puzzles, paints and baby dolls; everything a little girl in the kindergarten would love to play with. But no, she is sitting at a table with nobody she knows, staring at a blank piece of paper, not sure of what to do. She knows the teacher has instructed everyone to write their names, but in preschool she never really understood the concept of letters and words. She tried so hard to remember how to spell her name. She slowly wrote a “B”, then an “R”. Sounding out her name, she remembered she had an “I”, followed by two “N’s”, and finally an “E”. Looking at her name she was pretty happy about her accomplishment. But much to her dismay her teacher asked the students to raise their hands if they could spell their whole name. Well, Brinne couldn’t. She could barely remember how to spell her first name. Humiliated, she didn’t get to raise her hand. She sadly slumped down in her chair and prayed the teacher would say, “Ok, good enough for today. You may go play.” But that is not what happened. The teacher said, “Okay students, the next thing I am going to do is hand out these papers. They have dots on them. I want you to trace the dots and see if you know what letter of the alphabet it makes. Brinne received her paper and looked at it for a second. She had seen things like this before. She traced something that started looking like an “A”, and what did she come to find? It was an “A”! She continued all the way to Z, missing letters here and there, but she got some right! Finally when everybody was done, her teacher told them that they could now go and play. Happy about her success she went and played with things that had nothing to do with writing; puzzles, painting, etc.



I have never been really good at writing. In fact, letters and words really didn’t make sense to me until the 4th grade. Of course my mom was nervous, but my teachers from the previous years told her that it was totally natural. Well, with the lack of understanding, my letters, and my spelling was very far behind. In fact, it is still very behind. This is why I really don’t enjoy writing.



Like I said, I have never really enjoyed writing. The only thing I liked to do with writing when I was little was if we were playing restaurant and I was the waitress writing down people’s orders.



I don’t write on my own free will, therefore I don’t need any special place or anything out of the ordinary to write. I only write when I have an assignment. Luckily for me, getting behind in my letters didn’t stop my imagination from flowing, so I can write pretty good papers. But I do not do it on my own free will, and again, I think it is because of the embarrassment of my spelling.



I do not enjoy writing with a pencil or paper. I love the convenience of the computer. and it’s very accessible spell check. I do enjoy just about any format of writing. I really enjoyed my 10th grade research paper because it was something I was interested in. I really enjoyed writing specific poetry assigned last year. I do enjoy writing papers on myself and on other people I know directly…. not historical.

I do not write consistently. I do not have a journal or Diary. I don’t write anybody on a regular basis, but I do text often, if that is considered writing.



My writing career started in kindergarten with embarrassment and something that seemed like failure, and finally I got some help in the 4th grade by an amazing teacher. And look where I am today! I have taken 3 honors English classes; not bad for someone who really does not enjoy writing.