What I like most about your pieces is that they weave an image and throughout all of your papers you strengthen that image with words. I fell that it is easy to tell that you are an art major. In your memoir you talk about your 3rd grade self being a magician, at first I thought that was all there was to the story until I got to the end and you included the analysis. It was like I was tying my shoes for the first time again. The way you include the image of yourself and the feelings of those around you and tie it in at the end is some pretty top notch work.

Mitchell,

You let no detail go by unaddressed. The mark of a true journalist. Although, you aren't afraid to add yourself into the equation and that helps with this kind of thing. You've made the writings more personable and humble. You explain what everything means and why it means that way to you in a way that doesn't expressly put yourself over the top and that is something I think we will all take away from this class. What I like the most out of your portfolio is your memoir, you grappled with concepts that not many people would want to have to do for a grade.

Kate,

Your writings are fairly balanced and on target but the most striking piece is your memoir. It is a very personal subject that you handled fairly well in writing. It also shows just how there are some experiences that can sober people right up. This is your strongest piece, the emotion that you use inside of it strengthens your voice and is a trait that most people lack or just can't use. If it is something you'd be willing to do you should try using that voice inside of a creative writing class, it's been a long time since that event but I imagine just thinking about it brings you right back to that phone call.

Victoria, The best part about Victoria's writing is that it is really easy to get sucked into. It's almost as if she is using a stream of consciousness. I feel what she is thinking and the way she explains everthing inside of all 3 of her papers really makes me get inside of her mind so-to-speak. I can also tell that she has spent time improving her works for this class, from draft 1 of paper one to the final of paper 3, her thoughts have developed and matured and the writing propels the reader.

Melissa,

You say you aren't a writer but this portfolio proves otherwise. You've produced writing that not many people of your generation will willingly produce. Like I have said to you before, I think you should try another stab at it. Through the progression of your writing it is clear that you left your comfort zone and tried handling something new, and with work can possibly be something much greater than you are making it out to be. The language and voice inside of your memoir convey this message again but at the same time is a bit contradicting because you can use that language and voice like that. Not many people who aren't writers can't do that.

I learned many things about academia inside of this class but not really that much about my writing styles. Something I've mentioned time and time again is that I believe I've found my voice and that I can use it consistently. I did notice that this class has helped streghten my voice and at the same time has helped me be able to analize material more critically than I really have cared to do before. The first writing was something I tried to gloss over but took me more time than most of the other writings I have done before, the second writing was completely new to me and in the end helped foster a sense of stability inside of my writing voice, and the third piece, something I've always wanted to do, helped me understand that writing is much much more than what I've made it out to be. It's fun (for me) to recount how I've grown through the years and this was a perfect place to test out the voice that I'm eventually going to use to write the story of my life.

The computer was running hot from being turned on, Microsoft Word beckoning me with it’s blank white page and blinking cursor pleading me to come do my English assignment. It was a call that would go unanswered for a couple of days. It was important for me, as a freshman in high school, to build amazing models using the latest Lego creations but it was not important for me to find a topic to write about for a persuasive essay.
The other kids in my English class have all written first drafts and handed them in, the teacher checked their names and told them that they could leave early for the day. The uncomfortable blue plastic chair would unfortunately hold me in its grasp longer. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t turned in a draft, but I didn’t want to be compared to the others sitting in the room with me. They were the kids who didn’t care about their education and would probably pass by the skin of their teeth, I was the kid who calculated exactly what I could miss and still get a B or a C in the course—this failed first draft being my one error.
Sheilah Kaehny stared us down, and in return, we cast our gazes elsewhere, this was an effective way to curb her disappointment for 2 seconds. She launched into her spiel of how disappointed she was with us and how our grades were going to get docked but we still needed to turn in a draft by the next day to satisfy her anger. This is where I found a skill I thought I hadn’t had, and one that would help me for years to come. The ability to write under pressure, the single ability that propels me through school and one that would eventually take my interest in the form of journalism.
Under the context given, it sounds like I would have just bullshitted the paper and handed it in for a decent B- grade that most BS papers get without fail, but I was young and naïve and wanted to impress Kaehny and have her revoke my previous failure. I wrote the paper that night and handed it in to her the next day. Looking back, it was a simple paper; persuade her to think your way about the topic you choose. So, I did something easy, I picked a topic everybody has written about at least once: teachers getting paid more. I even added little doodles along the border to amp the effect of the paper.
After reading the essay and marking up the errors, Kaehny had asked me if I would like to talk to her after class. Naturally, every high school freshman will be worried about it. Questions floated through my head like: Did she like it? Oh no, did I accidentally plagiarize? What if it is a total piece of crap? When I got into her office she was sitting at her desk grading papers. I walked up to her, swallowed my pride and knocked on her wall. “Mrs. K-Kaehny,” my voice was wavering, I was never good at being cool like the people on the television.
“Dan, alright do you know why I called you into my office?” Standard teacher question.
“No, I don’t. Did I do something wrong?” Standard student response.
“I would like to talk to you about your essay, Dan. Other than a few errors this has a potential to be an A paper. You essentially picked a topic, did an outline, and wrote your draft while the other students have probably been planning all of this out for the past week or two.” Her eyes full of demonic glee weren’t enough to counter my feelings of being in trouble.
“Uh-huh”
“What I am trying to get at here is that you can add a coherent thought onto paper under a deadline.”
“I guess I don’t understand.” Feigning ignorance was all I could do while my mind processed the fact that I wasn’t in trouble.
“I know it’s too late to do it this later into the semester but how would you like to join the ranks of The Trojan Voice next year?” The Trojan Voice was the school newspaper that Kaehny advised; in fact she seemed to use her English classes as a farm team kind of thing. Hardly any students were interested in joining and the English department drafted the rest of us.
I don’t know why I eventually answered yes; I had no experience in the ways of journalistic writing. I had bad people skills, in fact if I hadn’t joined that class I would most likely be the quiet kid in every class who sulks their head when they are walking to and from class and that would be no fun. This was the single biggest event that led me to enjoy writing—leisurely and for work. But at this point I was only a sophomore, I had plenty of writing left to learn about, plenty to practice, and even some awful timed essays inside of a composition class that I took junior year.
Inside the class, I was quickly taught everything I needed to know about news writing and was assigned two stories: What exactly does the Colorado Student Assessment Program do and another story about how a law was being passed that would let high school students cook with alcohol for tournaments. I was scared to death. I had to broaden my horizons more than I wanted to for me to write these stories. I even had to go so far as calling a Congressman about the CSAP story, talking with another school about how the cooking laws affected the curriculum and I had to talk to students who I would probably never interact with.
Over the years, I wrote stories about a streaker running through school, the district art show and eventually wandered into the realm of feature and opinion stories by writing a Japanese band review and an article about why Art was essential to High Schools. But this wasn’t the only thing I had used to preoccupy my time. At the time, I was split about going three different ways with my education: I could choose to continue with newspaper, increase my interest with physics or I could take the art classes that I had found a fondness of. After juggling with all three, I decided that I didn’t want to take calculus to continue taking physics, and I walked an even road with taking art classes and newspaper. In fact, if I wasn’t covered in clay or bleeding because I cut myself on a piece of metal in jewelry it was a bad day for me.
However, I can’t blame my newspaper class for my love of writing. It was the spark, the item in a nefarious agenda that would take me through two advanced English courses. One of which I failed for the very reason I got myself into this mess, and the other one being fun enough that I didn’t consider a class. As time grew on I found that the more objective pieces I wrote the more bland and unappealing my writing voice became. Thanks to those classes I took, I learned how to control it and became a better writer. In fact, some of the best things I’ve written were done inside of my British Literature/Composition class. The teacher would require us to write using the word-of-the-day everyday and also had us do timed essays because the teacher, Denise Conolly, was essentially crazy.
Those are the reasons that eventually drove me to become a Journalism major with a minor in English in college. The major to pursue my passion and the minor to counterbalance the negative effects of writing in a “newsy” voice all of the time. In fact the minor was a replacement choice, originally I had applied to be an Art minor but after setting foot inside of one of the required classes I realized that they were going to make me do stuff that I knew I wouldn’t spend time on when all I wanted to do was make some pottery.
Today, I’m still learning all that I can about journalism in hopes that one day I’ll have “the job.” The job that I feel comfortable enough with staying right where I am at until something better shows up. I’m only human. Until that fateful day, I’m looking forward to every chance I get to write stories and invest my talents into creative writing. There may even be the off chance that I write a memoir, just maybe.

The computer was running hot from being turned on, Microsoft Word beckoning me with it’s blank white page and blinking cursor pleading me to come do my English assignment. It was a call that would go unanswered for a couple of days. It was important for me, as a freshman in high school, to build amazing models using the latest Lego creations but it was not important for me to find a topic to write about for a persuasive essay.
The other kids in my English class have all written first drafts and handed them in, the teacher checked their names and told them that they could leave early for the day. The uncomfortable blue plastic chair would unfortunately hold me in its grasp longer. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t turned in a draft, but I didn’t want to be compared to the others sitting in the room with me. They were the kids who didn’t care about their education and would probably pass by the skin of their teeth, I was the kid who calculated exactly what I could miss and still get a B or a C in the course—this failed first draft being my one error.
Sheilah Kaehny stared us down, and in return, we cast our gazes elsewhere, this was an effective way to curb her disappointment for 2 seconds. She launched into her spiel of how disappointed she was with us and how our grades were going to get docked but we still needed to turn in a draft by the next day to satisfy her anger. This is where I found a skill I thought I hadn’t had, and one that would help me for years to come. The ability to write under pressure, the single ability that propels me through school and one that would eventually take my interest in the form of journalism.
Under the context given, it sounds like I would have just bullshitted the paper and handed it in for a decent B- grade that most BS papers get without fail, but I was young and naïve and wanted to impress Kaehny and have her revoke my previous failure. I wrote the paper that night and handed it in to her the next day. Looking back, it was a simple paper; persuade her to think your way about the topic you choose. So, I did something easy, I picked a topic everybody has written about at least once: teachers getting paid more. I even added little doodles along the border to amp the effect of the paper.
After reading the essay and marking up the errors, Kaehny had asked me if I would like to talk to her after class. Naturally, every high school freshman will be worried about it. Questions floated through my head like: Did she like it? Oh no, did I accidentally plagiarize? What if it is a total piece of crap? When I got into her office she was sitting at her desk grading papers. I walked up to her, swallowed my pride and knocked on her wall. “Mrs. K-Kaehny,” my voice was wavering, I was never good at being cool like the people on the television.
“Dan, alright do you know why I called you into my office?” Standard teacher question.
“No, I don’t. Did I do something wrong?” Standard student response.
“I would like to talk to you about your essay, Dan. Other than a few errors this has a potential to be an A paper. You essentially picked a topic, did an outline, and wrote your draft while the other students have probably been planning all of this out for the past week or two.” Her eyes full of demonic glee weren’t enough to counter my feelings of being in trouble.
“Uh-huh”
“What I am trying to get at here is that you can add a coherent thought onto paper under a deadline.”
“I guess I don’t understand.” Feigning ignorance was all I could do while my mind processed the fact that I wasn’t in trouble.
“I know it’s too late to do it this later into the semester but how would you like to join the ranks of The Trojan Voice next year?” The Trojan Voice was the school newspaper that Kaehny advised; in fact she seemed to use her English classes as a farm team kind of thing. Hardly any students were interested in joining and the rest of us were drafted by the English department.
I don’t know why I eventually answered yes; I had no experience in the ways of journalistic writing. I had bad people skills, in fact if I hadn’t joined that class I would most likely be the quiet kid in every class who sulks their head when they are walking to and from class and that would be no fun. This was the single biggest event that led me to enjoy writing—leisurely and for work. But at this point I was only a sophomore, I had plenty of writing left to learn about, plenty to practice, and even some awful timed essays inside of a composition class that I took junior year.
Inside the class, I was quickly taught everything I needed to know about news writing and was assigned two stories: What exactly does the Colorado Student Assessment Program do and another story about how a law was being passed that would let high school students cook with alcohol for tournaments. I was scared to death. I had to broaden my horizons more than I wanted to for me to write these stories. I even had to go so far as calling a Congressman about the CSAP story, talking with another school about how the cooking laws affected the curriculum and I had to talk to students who I would probably never interact with.
Over the years, I wrote stories about a streaker running through school, the district art show and eventually wandered into the realm of feature and opinion stories by writing a Japanese band review and an article about why Art was essential to High Schools. But this wasn’t the only thing I had used to preoccupy my time. At the time, I was split about going three different ways with my education: I could choose to continue with newspaper, increase my interest with physics or I could take the art classes that I had found a fondness of. After juggling with all three, I decided that I didn’t want to take calculus to continue taking physics, and I walked an even road with taking art classes and newspaper. In fact, if I wasn’t covered in clay or bleeding because I cut myself on a piece of metal in jewelry it was a bad day for me.
However, I can’t blame my newspaper class for my love of writing. It was the spark, the item in a nefarious agenda that would take me through two advanced English courses. One of which I failed for the very reason I got myself into this mess, and the other one being fun enough that I didn’t consider a class. As time grew on I found that the more objective pieces I wrote the more bland and unappealing my writing voice became. Thanks to those classes I took, I learned how to control it and became a better writer. In fact, some of the best things I’ve written were done inside of my British Literature/Composition class. The teacher would require us to write using the word-of-the-day everyday and also had us do timed essays because the teacher, Denise Conolly, was essentially crazy.
Those are the reasons that eventually drove me to become a Journalism major with a minor in English in college. The major to pursue my passion and the minor to counterbalance the negative effects of writing in a “newsy” voice all of the time. In fact the minor was a replacement choice, originally I had applied to be an Art minor but after setting foot inside of one of the required classes I realized that they were going to make me do stuff that I knew I wouldn’t spend time on when all I wanted to do was make some pottery.

Memoir

Future Building

The computer was running hot from being turned on, Microsoft Word beckoning me with it’s blank white page and blinking cursor pleading me to come do my English assignment. It was a call that would go unanswered for a couple of days. It was important for me, as a freshman in high school, to build amazing models using the latest Lego creations but it was not important for me to find a topic to write about for a persuasive essay.
The other kids in my English class have all written first drafts and handed them in, the teacher checked their names and told them that they could leave early for the day. The uncomfortable blue plastic chair would unfortunately hold me in its grasp longer. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t turned in a draft, but I didn’t want to be compared to the others sitting in the room with me. They were the kids who didn’t care about their education and would probably pass by the skin of their teeth, I was the kid who calculated exactly what I could miss and still get a B or a C in the course.
Sheilah Kaehny stared us down, and in return, we cast our gazes elsewhere, this was an effective way to curb her disappointment for 2 seconds. She launched into her spiel of how disappointed she was with us and how our grades were going to get docked but we still needed to turn in a draft by the next day to satisfy her anger. This is where I found a skill I thought I hadn’t had, and one that would help me for years to come. The ability to write under pressure, the single ability that propels me through school and one that would eventually take my interest in the form of journalism.
Under the context given, it sounds like I would have just bullshitted the paper and handed it in for a decent B- grade that most BS papers get without fail, but I was young and naïve and wanted to impress Kaehny and have her revoke my previous failure. I wrote the paper that night and handed it in to her the next day. Looking back, it was a simple paper; persuade her to think your way about the topic you choose. So, I did something easy, I picked a topic everybody has written about at least once: teachers getting paid more. I even added little doodles along the border to amp the effect of the paper.
After reading the essay and marking of the errors, Kaehny had asked me if I would like to talk to her after class. Naturally every high school freshman will be worried about it. Questions floated through my head like: Did she like it? Oh no, did I accidentally plagiarize. What if it is a total piece of crap. When I got into her office she was sitting at her desk grading papers. I walked up to her, swallowed my pride and knocked on her wall. “Mrs. K-Kaehny,” my voice was wavering, I was never good at being cool like the people on the television.
“Dan, alright do you know why I called you into my office?” “No, I don’t. Did I do something wrong?”
“I would like to talk to you about your essay, Dan. Other than a few errors this has a potential to be an A paper. You essentially picked a topic, did an outline, and wrote your draft while the other students have probably been planning all of this out for the past week or two.” Her eyes full of demonic glee weren’t enough to counter my feelings of being in trouble.
“Uh-huh”
“What I am trying to get at here is that you can add a coherent thought onto paper under a deadline.”
“I guess I don’t understand.” Feigning ignorance was all I could do while my mind processed the fact that I wasn’t in trouble.
“I know it’s too late to do it this later into the semester but how would you like to join the ranks of The Trojan Voice next year?” The Trojan Voice was the school newspaper that Kaehny advised; in fact she seemed to use her English classes as a farm team kind of thing. Hardly any students were interested in joining and the English dept. dragted us into it.
I don’t know why I eventually answered yes; I had no experience in the ways of journalistic writing. I had bad people skills, in fact if I hadn’t joined that class I would most likely be the quiet kid in every class who sulks their head when they are walking to and from class and that would be no fun. This was the single biggest event that led me to enjoy writing—leisurely and for work. But at this point I was only a sophomore, I had plenty of writing left to learn about, plenty to practice, and even some awful timed essays inside of a composition class that I took junior year.
Inside the class, I was quickly taught everything I needed to know about news writing and was assigned two stories: What exactly does the Colorado Student Assessment Program do and another story about how a law was being passed that would let high school students cook with alcohol for tournaments. I was scared to death. I had to broaden my horizons more than I wanted to for me to write these stories. I even had to go so far as calling a Congressman about the CSAP story, talking with another school about how the cooking laws affected the curriculum and I had to talk to students who I would probably never interact with.
Over the years I wrote stories about a streaker running through school, the district art show and eventually wandered into the realm of feature and opinion stories by writing a Japanese band review and an article about why Art was essential to High Schools. But this wasn’t the only thing I had used to preoccupy my time. At the time I was split about going three different ways with my education: I could choose to continue with newspaper, increase my interest with physics or I could take the art classes that I had found a fondness of. After juggling with all three I decided that I didn’t want to take calculus to continue taking physics, and I walked an even road with taking art classes and newspaper. In fact, if I wasn’t covered in clay or bleeding because I cut myself on a piece of metal in jewelry it was a bad day for me.
However I can’t blame my newspaper class for my love of writing. It was the spark, the item in a nefarious agenda that would take me through two advanced English courses. One of which I failed for the very reason I got myself into this mess, and the other one being fun enough that I didn’t consider a class. As time grew on I found that the more objective pieces I wrote the more bland and unappealing my writing voice became. Thanks to those classes I took, I learned how to control it and became a better writer. In fact, some of the best things I’ve written were done inside of my British Literature/Composition class. The teacher would require us to write using the word-of-the-day everyday and also had us do timed essays because the teacher, Denise Conolly, was essentially crazy.

What is true and what is false is based on nothing more, according to post modernists, as being a weight on a person’s point of view. These constraints are forced by the tight requirements of the economy and politics influencing us, in essence, peer pressure of society forces us, as people, what to think. The point made here is very easy, but at the same time, too difficult to understand.
However, using a simple example can debunk the post modernist’s theory. Engineers and architects strive to achieve perfection. They are skilled at using their available resources to combat obstacles that stop them from attaining their goal. Their measurements are crucial to the designs they create and above all else should not shift under the erratic changes that an individual’s perspective implies. Also, for the work to be held under the demands of social norms or the unspoken laws of society could skew results and end up creating something that wasn’t intended. Their measurements must always be correct—perfect to a “tee”—but they must be stable as well.

After imitating Frankfurt’s work I still think that it can be labeled as being very dense. Frankfurt’s piece is very dense with meaning and hard to swallow; in contrast my style of writing can be very light and playful. His content and my style didn’t mix very well. Which helped to uncover a small flaw in my argument, the content on the page isn’t just the body but it plays a small role in developing the voice. The style and content a person uses cohesively create their style, albeit most of the voice still belongs to style.
In the passage, Frankfurt talks about the post modernist’s view on truth and applies a very simple example to it to dispel the logic behind the argument. Basically, truth is user-defined and the experience of our lives changes what we see as truth. What he argues, with the help of an engineer or architect, is that this doesn’t hold true for every group of people. The engineers and architects of the world can never skew their data, they let their tools and methods help shape their ideas and creations, then those creations need to be stable enough to be able to do what they were intended to do. If they let outside ideas overtake their work then that work becomes unstable. That is something I tried to highlight in my imitation, whether I took it out of context or not, I wanted it to be easier for the reader to understand this position on the definition of truth.
Trying to inflict my style onto Frankfurt’s content was very hard; I had to play around with mechanics and word choice, as per normal, then I even needed to simplify most of what he said to fit it into the way I would say it. In order to effectively imitate Frankfurt into my voice, I found that I had to change both the style and content of the piece.
Going back to my previous example of linguistics, I said that the morphemes were the content and everything else was style and that style created the voice of the paper. Something that was made apparent in the imitation writing process was that you could change the content of the piece and in changing the content you could easily change the style. You can change the morpheme’s meaning with simple additions and that makes it easier to change the overall style of the piece.
I gathered from the exercise that in order to create your voice, the content and style of the writing need to make sense, and can’t drastically differ from each other. In order to bond the imitation together I first had to make Frankfurt’s content simpler—something you could easily read and find the meaning to without much strain, after that it became very easy to inject my style into the piece. It was like cutting a piece of steak into little bite sized pieces, then adding steak sauce onto them. However, I still believe that the voice of a paper is the style in which it was written, the content still plays a part and essentially dictates the style of the piece.

Gates does the same thing in his memoir Colored People, he talks back to his cultures identity because he doesn't like that they dont' present it to the outside world.

Imitation: To retain the shape of the clay, not the soggy form that it will likely become, you must find a perfect balance between water and force applied -- the golden road.

Model Sentence: If one must worship a bully, it is better that he should be a policeman than a gangster.

Imitation: It is clear to him that his methods aren't effective, he realized that he'd have to be more caring than abrasive.

Model Sentence: The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who told their stories round the savage campfire.

imitation: A strong woman who holds her house together single-handedly is the one that will face problems promptly.

Model sentence: To regain the stage in its own character, not as a mere emulation of prose, poetry must find its own poetic way to the mastery the stage demands -- the mastery of action.

Variation of the pattern: Not as a mere emulation of prose, to regain the stage in its own character --the mastery of action -- poetry must find its own poetic way to the mastery the stage demands.

Alternate Expression: In order to find the "mastery of action" it is clear that poetry must not emulate prose, but gain its own character to master the stage.

High School is a time when people can discover latent talents and abilities. A time when young adults start to decide on what they want to do when they leave the boundaries of their public education. Some skills most kids never knew they had start to flourish under the guidance of their teachers, while the others skills become stagnant. In my case, I chose journalism over physics, I chose to have my work critiqued in front of everyone who reads or hears what I do as opposed to being able to project velocities or being able to pinpoint where sounds come from. Lame, I know.

From that experience, I believe an effective writing classroom employs both the ideas of Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae, meaning that the classroom should have a teacher that acts more like an advisor would. Someone knowledgeable on the subject who can help shape an argument but allows the writer to find their own unique way about doing things.

I had no clue what I was doing when I joined my first journalism class in high school. No idea of what an "inverted pyramid" might contain or what the 5 W's even stood for. On the first day of class I was assigned my first article and given a crash course on how to construct a basic news article. With time and the help of our teacher, I learned what it felt like to write under deadlines, how to forge the headline that would tug on the reader's attention. This developed from a few rudimentary lessons from the teacher but was encouraged and matured under supervision. The teacher no longer teaching the student but advising them to use what they know to excel.

It is important to have the teacher inside of the classroom; if that critical chain is gone then the student never gains the ability to grow. Peter Elbow tried to push freewriting to overcome teachers inside of the classroom. It was through freewriting that Elbow believed that one, after writing everything they could nonstop, then edit it down, could achieve a piece worthy of the academic discourse community. In his work, "Writing Without Teachers", Elbow states that a student learns and a teacher teaches, but without the teacher a student can still learn. Students can learn, yes, but without that careful guidance from the instructor can students excel? It was in this setting of the classroom that I learned how to put words on a page, everything I did didn't need to be carefully planned out. It could just happen and it didn't need to be good or bad as long as I got what I needed out but then I would call it a finished product.

However, it also important to have that unique voice present in writing, the voice that the students need to find by themselves because the teacher can't possibly teach it. David Bartholomae's argument present in his essay, "Writing With Teachers", is that what a student learns to write isn't their own, "It belongs to TV, to Books, to Culture and History."  Therefore, a teacher needs to be present to instruct their students on how to write what has already been written. Which sounds very wrong. The teachers should be there to make sure that students aren't writing the past, that once they learn how to use the writing tools they've received they use them to push new concepts. The bartholomaen teacher is the absolute authority of the room, if they say "jump" you'd better be jumping or on crutches. This method doesn't work for me because I don't like the idea that I'm only writing what had been there before or I am becoming a miniature version of my teacher.

It is through both arguments that I stand in the middle ground. The classroom I favor isn't that of Elbow or Bartholomae, but of both. A classroom where the teacher may or may not teach traditionally but isn't the authority of the classroom. The teacher would be there to help guide the student if there was a problem but wouldn't tell them exactly what to do or how much of it to accomplish. In High School, I experienced all three styles of teaching class. I had the teacher who would encourage the freewrite sessions and then there were the teachers with the "my way or the highway" philosophy. Sure, I learned a lot in both of those classes but what I learned was how to write this essay and that story and how to go about it. Gaining nothing more. In my journalism class, I gained confidence in my writing. I could write something without having to take it to b approved by a teacher ever day and when I did they wouldn't throw the essay back at me and say try again.

Although this form of teaching may not succeed for every student or class type, the type of class I was in was student run. There was a hierarchy; we would help everyone succeed in publishing the school's newspaper.  The advisor only there to make sure we weren't jumping off of the cliff without good reasons but also giving us a grade. Some students cannot handle that method of teaching; they need the Bartholomae or Elbowian style to guide every phrase and mechanic to completion.

In High school I gathered many different skills, but most of them sit in the back of my mind collecting dust. They are all good skills though and if I need to use them I have them, one day it might become very pertinent to the situation that I be able to measure the air speed velocity of a ball to see where it lands, the importance of keeping the clay on a potter's wheel at the right consistency of water, even how to solder metal onto other metal. The skills I most heavily rely on are those that I developed in writing, not just in English composition classes but in my journalism class as well. Not every student needs to take a journalism to experience this kind of teaching either, they need to sit in a class that has a teacher and is there for help, but a class that relies on the other students to help out when needed. In that setting, the students not only have the skills they need but they are also reinforcing them and adapting to different methods.