Jessica Golden

Evolution Essay

 

Who have I become as a writer? Have I become the writer that can magically and comically put situations into stories and use words to relay experiences? Or have I become a politically charged writer, constantly persuading an audience and making an impact? Or maybe I’ve become the writer that could write in circles of indecision and put up an argument for each side? Declaring the writer that I have developed into is a complicated and daunting task, yet amazing at the same time. My relationship with writing and words has certainly evolved and there is a clear tipping point upon my acceptance to the Minor in Writing. The evolution of my writing is two fold, first in my experience has come a love of words and using them to express moments and feelings comically and cathartically over the last few years. Secondly, I have evolved in how I bring my writing to life. Being a writer doesn’t just mean writing a book or papers, it also includes multimedia and through videos, websites and blogs, I have pushed myself to bring the arguments and discussions to life, each time a little bit more sophisticated and challenging. While my style of expression has clearly evolved, so has my motivation. As a person who once saw writing as a truly excruciating task, I now understand the possibilities that come with staring at an empty screen thinking of what to say, I can share my ideas and I can let a little bit of myself really break through.

 

Sometimes all you need is the right teacher, the right prompt or even just the right feeling to change everything. Three years into college I wasn’t exactly avoiding writing but I definitely wasn’t seeking it out either, I was just getting by as good enough to get the grades I aimed for without challenging myself to actually be a successful writer. Then, I spontaneously signed up for English 225, Academic Argumentation, and things changed. I was challenged, I was taught and I became motivated to make each paper and piece of writing better because I finally had a teacher and opportunity that somehow made me feel like I could. The piece of writing that really changed me came from the prompt, “do something out of your comfort zone and write about it”. Unsure about where the project would go, I thought action first and writing later and deciding to walk in a fashion show. Going with the question taught me that writing can be a process that doesn’t necessarily start with words on a page but with feelings and experiences.

 

While the show was fun and certainly out of my comfort zone, writing about it completely enhanced the experience. What were pre-show nerves became, “The excitement slowly built up in me from my toes to my chin and then slithered right into my bones. The pit in my stomach switched back and forth as my heart beat went from zero to sixty” while my walk was described as “My bruised, tree trunk soccer legs did a cherubic spin and I fearlessly went back down the runway.” (Royally Average). Descriptive words and flowing metaphors filled my paper that I never knew I had in me to write. I finally began to think during my writing process of how I could explain to someone else how I felt I looked from the inside. Not only did my experience inspire my writing, but my writing then inspired another experience for me, to apply for the Minor in Writing.

 

I was honest in my minor application, openingly telling the admissions committee, “The opportunity to grow as a writer with this minor is one that I would embrace head on. Two years ago I would have laughed at the person who suggested I apply for the Minor in Writing, but now I am thanking them” (Letter of Interest). My acceptance to the program meant I would be challenging myself to try to bring that same inspiration to all of my writing in college that I did in English 225, but I was excited and hopeful and felt that I could really learn and develop. It was the first time I felt like I was challenging myself academically, I wanted the minor to push me to keep doing that.

 

When the opportunity came in English 325 to be creative and open with our projects, I tried to embrace my out of the box thinking. Two of my favorite pieces of writing came together in the middle of the semester. First, My Special Spot, gave an honest perspective of my secret obsession with covering a birthmark on my head. The piece didn’t just unravel a story of my life in 5 pages, it was a personal challenge to write. I had never written or even told anyone about my obsession, so to open up and put it in words for others to understand and read was scary and different, but still exciting. The process of writing as if telling people a story brought me to a new place at the end of my work, I not only wrote that I had reached acceptance with my spot, I actually found that acceptance, “Ten years later, the beauty mark represents that I made it past those mean bullies on the bus and that no mark on my face has stopped friends from liking me or boys from dating me or even hairstylists from washing or cutting my hair.” (My Special Spot). This piece of writing was able to be so conversational and honest because it was written as a conversation I had waited my whole life to have with someone.

 

My second piece of writing in English 325 was similar on a personal exploring level. My Keep Going piece was the first time I had experimented with the style of writing that intertwined two stories into one. It began with my routine of waking up and pushing through a morning run and slowly revealed the story of losing my aunt just a few weeks before actually writing this paper. Going through the run the physical aches I felt meshed well with the emotional ones I was going through, “Pretty sure I’m trying to shake off the hypothetical thoughts spinning in my mind. If only I had called her more, there wouldn’t be a list of things I never got to say.” (Keep Going). I began to use the piece of writing like my morning runs, as a cathartic way to go through the grief I was experience and I think that definitely comes through in the piece because I found a way to write down the emotions most people keep bundled up. In fact, I remember writing most of the piece rapidly since tears streamed down my face as I felt every word I typed.  Learning the new writing style was demanding of me, but actually having writing be a cathartic experience for the first time while I was actually going through the grief was entirely new.

 

My writing hasn’t just changed on paper. With the world becoming more dependent on technology, I’ve tried to find new ways to enhance my arguments through media options. In my freshman year English class, my first research paper was about how technology has changed education. While the argument lacked development and is even still a bit confusing to read four years later, the message was that when used correctly, technology can transform education. In that same class, I made my final project a Youtube video. Initially excited about the opportunity to create a video that was going to be about why a student would want to come to Michigan, looking back I realize that the entire project was not my best work. A pretty simple idea and a thrown together photo collage as a video was not a challenge for me and something that I’ve definitely kept in mind when thinking of trying to bring my work to life through technology. I’ve even taken time to imagine what the project “could’ve been” if I had the chance (or really the time) to do it again. It wouldn’t be photos from Google in a quick collage, it would be interviews of classmates and videos from lecture and sporting events and really capture the hidden parts of Michigan that makes students fall in love.

 

When I began the gateway into the minor in writing class, we were told we would have a semester long project of revising and re-creating a piece we have written earlier in college. To say I was un-excited by the idea would have been an understatement. The thought of working with the same piece of writing for a semester appeared daunting, and since I was so unhappy with who I was as a writer for my first half in college, I didn’t exactly like my choices.

 

The project became the benchmark for who I would become as a writer in the minor and the level I needed to reach on all of my work. I took a short paper about a political theory of girls being discouraged in sports and first revised it into a research paper about the effects that females felt when they were told they can’t do something. What I thought was just an assignment, became a research paper about other gender related classes I took on campus as resources and a commentary on the teaching of gender and it’s effects on college women. At first, I was pretty unaware of the argument I had just uncovered but through the next stage of the assignment, the re-creating, I realized I had something pretty amazing; I made a real commentary on University teaching and it’s impacts as a 19 year-old. By taking classes I had experienced first hand with academic research, I turned my research paper into an interactive website which explained the political theory and explained it’s effects on women through sports and their career decisions. I opened it up to students and teachers to post their feelings and reactions and my website ended up being on display at a conference as an example of taking an assignment and creating change from it.

 

Over a year later, I’m still so proud of that website on Women in College and use that research I learned as a way to speak my mind in the classroom when I see a gender imbalance being taught to me. The website also taught me that I could really bring a project to life and made me begin to think that in my generation there are so many new ways to get a message across. Would anyone have read my research paper and felt compelled to talk about it or share their viewpoints, or would they have just read it and continued on? I found myself amazed at the ability to use a website as a way to direct people’s attention towards important points I wanted to make. Using a website as a new way to think about presenting my argument brought writing to a whole new meaning for me.

 

When I started this course this semester, the capstone portion of my minor in writing, I knew I wanted my final project to be something worthwhile.  First, I knew I wouldn’t put the extra work in if I didn’t care for it and I felt like I owed it to myself to essentially, go big or go home. I wanted something I had never done before to be that final challenge in the minor and hoped that finding my way through it would remind me that just because the minor is ending, doesn’t mean I have to stop writing.

 

I found myself stuck in indecision for the final project. Since I loved what happened when I had the opportunity to write about myself, I tried to think of ideas where I could be reflective, but the lack of prompt and open possibilities left me in circles. What would be challenging and something I’d actually learn from? In the middle of applying to jobs and trying to decide what to do with my future, my project came to me: I would interview people around me that are everyday examples of knowing what they’re passionate about, finding that in their careers and use the interviews learn more about how they got there.

 

Turning the idea into reality was much more difficult than I had ever imagined. Deciding who to interview and what to ask seemed impossible on some days and the physical editing work on the interviews and creating another website was exhausting. Every moment was worth it. The project not only let me ask questions I didn’t always have the right time to ask, but also gave me time to reflect on advice from mentors, to reflect on how I was feeling as a college senior and to try to put into words what I’ve learned to an audience of friends in the same spot. I can see myself looking back at this project in a few weeks if I’m still lost on my career journey, or in 2 years if I find myself nervous but ready to make a new move. Turning this project into something that is multimedia will make that revisit so much better. I can actually hear the advice my mentors gave me and I can read and listen to the words I would tell myself but may have pushed to the back of the mind. Bringing this project to life with technology means I can always find it and I can always have it, definitely something worthwhile.

 

To say that learning to write, and I mean really learning what it means to write, has changed me wouldn’t give enough credit to the last few years. My personal growth through writing may appear to be one where I was a bad writer and now I’m a good writer and I’m thankful for the teachers that helped, but it is so much more than that. Writing became an experience truly off the page for me. From going out of my comfort zone and using experiences as inspiration to write to finding my own release from pain and secrets by finally putting the words down on paper, I’ve created a relationship with writing, a desire to push myself a step further with each blank page. So here I am now, a senior and finishing the capstone course in the Minor in Writing with a portfolio that spills out my emotions, awkward experiences and countless hours of hard work. I recommend you read each piece with the same care I took when I wrote it, in the hopes that you would better understand the parts of my world important enough to be captured by words. I would read the Why I Write piece first to be in the mindset of what writing really feels like for me from my start in the minor and I would finish with the Capstone Project, which resembles that while my writing has been personal it applies to greater audiences who are going through similar life transitions.

 

It’s been a fun ride and even better to take some time to reflect on who I’ve become as a writer, I hope you can see who I’ve become too.