My First Minor Assignment

Grades Don’t Prove Effort 

Through my years in public school I was never excited when I had to write an essay in class. I mostly wrote research papers and analytical essays. These essays really frustrated me based on the fact that I had to research and collect evidence to write. I never truly enjoyed what I was writing about, I just wrote what I thought the teacher would want to hear in order to get a good grade. The only time I was ever excited when writing was when I got to be creative with it. I specifically remember a time where I had to write a research paper for my history class and we had to spend a month working on it. During this time I researched and found quotes, data, and sources in to write the paper. After all the time and effort I put into it, I  was very disappointed when I received a lower grade than I would have liked. This was a very unenjoyable experience and definitely affected my view on writing now. 

This History paper was just one of many bad writing experiences I had where I put so much effort into a paper just to get a grade that did not show what I put into it. This is mainly the reason why I don’t like writing. I really dislike how most teachers just look at how your writing matched up with the prompt and guidelines they give you, they don’t look at the effort you put in.

I like to write when I can be creative and have freedom with what I write. For example in one of my english classes in highschool we had to write about anything we wanted as a sample college essay. For this essay there were no guidelines or prompt, it wasn’t graded for accuracy, it was graded on completion. This type of writing is what I enjoy. I wrote about something that made me happy, I talked about my family and what it was like going to the Cape Cod every summer with them to my grandparents house. I was excited for the teacher to read it without having to grade it based on a rubric because they could focus on my story and and learn more about me personally. 

Writing should not be graded, it should be a way to express yourself, not something that is used to prove your intelligence and understanding on a topic. It should not be restricted, I believe there would be many more people that would be fond of writing if I could do it freely and creatively. I would do a lot better as a writer and student  if I truly enjoyed what I was writing about and not writing for a teacher and a grade.