I am a sophomore at Bridgewater State University. I am studying Elementary Education and English. In high school and my first year in college, I have taken classes on a lot of different kinds of writing. My favorite classes were my creative writing classes. There were a wide variety of genres that I was able to practice, which was very different from the formal writing in my regular English classes. Taking these classes showed me what genres I was strong in, compared to others. One thing I did not get to practice a lot of was non-fiction writing. Creative writing was a lot of fiction writing, which was fun, but I definitely wanted to try something different. This Journalistic Essay course is something that allowed me to try out non-fiction writing and learn how it can be as entertaining to write as fiction is. On this website you can find some of the writing I did in this class. This includes a couple of my best blog posts and in-class writings. I also included two pieces I wrote for my midterm portfolio and two pieces I wrote for my final portfolio.
The first blog post I picked was my first book club post about “Why School”. This is one of my best blog posts because it was a good explanation about what I expected from the book. I wrote a lot about what I read because at the beginning of the book I was hooked. I stated everything that I found interesting and I enjoyed. After this post, I could not write any detailed book club posts because I was not as into the book as I was at the beginning. This post was very different from the others so it stood out to me.
The second blog post I found to be one of my best is the one that I wrote about the Ferguson case. Since this is a story that is constantly appearing on the news it is something that is up to date and important for everyone to know about. I have done a lot of research on the case and I was very passionate about writing about the topic. I have wanted a reason to write about it, and this gave me the chance to so I put a lot of thought and effort into this post.
The first in-class writing I chose as one of my best was one written on September 22nd, 2014. This was one of my best because I enjoyed the short story I responded to. We had to answer questions on “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster”. Since I enjoyed this piece so much, I was invested in answering these questions. I was able to map out and understand the piece in more detail. If I did not answer these questions, I think I would have missed some of the details in the story focusing on time and sound.
Another one of my best in-class writings was one written on November 2, 2014. I wrote about what I was planning to do for my magazine feature. I thought this was one of the best because this was a topic that I was very excited to write about. I thought that I would put a lot of work into it since it is something that I have experience on and I feel very strongly about. Also, I was able to profile people which we had practice doing earlier in the semester, so I was able to use what I learned and applied it.
In my magazine feature, the main revision that I made was making the feature more about the families rather than the heroin epidemic in Massachusetts. Originally I tried including statistics about the problem that is beginning in Massachusetts, but I think that based on the profiles I included, it needed to be more about how it affected the families. There is a more personal connection when including the families rather than focusing on the statistics. I think that the statistics took away from the emotions readers would feel while reading about the stories included in the feature.
In my newspaper feature about the Irish Step Dancing world, I had one main revision that I had to make. I had to make the explanations about Irish dancing easier to understand since a majority of my readers may not know what I’m saying when I say certain terms. I had to make the feature something that everyone reading it would enjoy. Originally it was something that could be found in a newspaper specifically for people who understand Irish dancing so the revisions made it something that everyone could understand.
This semester I learned that I have never really written creative non-fiction before. There were a lot of things that I realized I needed more practice in. In my previous creative writing classes we did a wide variety of writings, but we never focused solely on creative non-fiction. I learned I am too used to writing formal writing such as research papers because writing pieces like this was a big jump for me. Since I do not plan on focusing on writing for my career, it was different and fun to get this experience and try a different kind of writing that I am not necessarily used to.
If I plan on writing creative non-fiction again, I have to work on staying focused on my point. I tend to lose the focus when writing which makes my readers feel as if they are lost. I think it is hard for me to stay focused because I get distracted by other things that I may feel are necessary to include at the time. By having others read it beforehand, I can hear what people think I should take out that may not be necessary. By fixing this, I can improve any writing I do whether if it is a profile or a research paper. There is always a possibility of losing your focus no matter what you are writing about.
The first blog post I picked was my first book club post about “Why School”. This is one of my best blog posts because it was a good explanation about what I expected from the book. I wrote a lot about what I read because at the beginning of the book I was hooked. I stated everything that I found interesting and I enjoyed. After this post, I could not write any detailed book club posts because I was not as into the book as I was at the beginning. This post was very different from the others so it stood out to me.
The second blog post I found to be one of my best is the one that I wrote about the Ferguson case. Since this is a story that is constantly appearing on the news it is something that is up to date and important for everyone to know about. I have done a lot of research on the case and I was very passionate about writing about the topic. I have wanted a reason to write about it, and this gave me the chance to so I put a lot of thought and effort into this post.
The first in-class writing I chose as one of my best was one written on September 22nd, 2014. This was one of my best because I enjoyed the short story I responded to. We had to answer questions on “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster”. Since I enjoyed this piece so much, I was invested in answering these questions. I was able to map out and understand the piece in more detail. If I did not answer these questions, I think I would have missed some of the details in the story focusing on time and sound.
Another one of my best in-class writings was one written on November 2, 2014. I wrote about what I was planning to do for my magazine feature. I thought this was one of the best because this was a topic that I was very excited to write about. I thought that I would put a lot of work into it since it is something that I have experience on and I feel very strongly about. Also, I was able to profile people which we had practice doing earlier in the semester, so I was able to use what I learned and applied it.
In my magazine feature, the main revision that I made was making the feature more about the families rather than the heroin epidemic in Massachusetts. Originally I tried including statistics about the problem that is beginning in Massachusetts, but I think that based on the profiles I included, it needed to be more about how it affected the families. There is a more personal connection when including the families rather than focusing on the statistics. I think that the statistics took away from the emotions readers would feel while reading about the stories included in the feature.
In my newspaper feature about the Irish Step Dancing world, I had one main revision that I had to make. I had to make the explanations about Irish dancing easier to understand since a majority of my readers may not know what I’m saying when I say certain terms. I had to make the feature something that everyone reading it would enjoy. Originally it was something that could be found in a newspaper specifically for people who understand Irish dancing so the revisions made it something that everyone could understand.
This semester I learned that I have never really written creative non-fiction before. There were a lot of things that I realized I needed more practice in. In my previous creative writing classes we did a wide variety of writings, but we never focused solely on creative non-fiction. I learned I am too used to writing formal writing such as research papers because writing pieces like this was a big jump for me. Since I do not plan on focusing on writing for my career, it was different and fun to get this experience and try a different kind of writing that I am not necessarily used to.
If I plan on writing creative non-fiction again, I have to work on staying focused on my point. I tend to lose the focus when writing which makes my readers feel as if they are lost. I think it is hard for me to stay focused because I get distracted by other things that I may feel are necessary to include at the time. By having others read it beforehand, I can hear what people think I should take out that may not be necessary. By fixing this, I can improve any writing I do whether if it is a profile or a research paper. There is always a possibility of losing your focus no matter what you are writing about.