A Bard's Real World Blog
Journal, Blog, News, and Diary

The right way to write
Did I tell you my beef against English teachers? (not universal, mind you)

Well, senior year of high school, I actually liked Mr. Hakim. My brother Sean ravved about him when he was in school, but he's grading style eventually taught me that he didn't know jack!

What was cool about the class was that Every week we had to turn in some writing project. We could do whatever we wanted. There were really no restrictions.

Every morning, one student in Calc would be there doing his writing assignment. And whenever he got it back, A+. Then there was me.

Admittedly, I didn't spend a Whole lot o'time on these projects. But occasionally I did. I wrote one long poem once that was sorta about an space invasion of the mind. The poem was mediocre IMO, but one line said something about the sun disappearing (aka an eclipse). To which he wrote something on the lines of "that's impossible".

But the thing that REALLY bugged me was a short story I wrote called "The Puppeteer". It was inspired by a moth that was stuck in my bathroom one day. I created this wonderful story about how it got there. But I took the form of an old man telling a child about it. Later you find the old man is actually a moth and he's caught in a spider web.

But the absurd thing to me was I had the child speak like my next door neighbors child... I didn't form complete whurds. I wote as if kid whas speaking. I was vewy impwessed by the way I did it, pewsonally. But he wasn't. His comment, "No kid talks like that" and gave me a B.

Sure there might've been other probs with the story, but IMO, it was an incredible piece and better deserving than a B. Obviously, he was a man out of touch with reality. That was when I started taking critics opinions as humph.

I decided then that I would write as I want to. And one of the most rewarding things about my journal and poetry these days is to hear that people like it despite the fact that it probably'd earn me a C in Mr Hakim's class. I connect with people through writing (better than in person in many cases)

And if he was grading for grammar. Sure that's one thing, but he gave full liberty with how we write. Then means leniancy on his part. Basically, he had a style that HE liked, but doesn't necessarily mean it's the RIGHT way to write.

It's like even if someone made spelling errors galore, ye can't judge that. Perhaps they did that on purpose. Perhaps they are not competant in english, but again, they are expressing themselves and that IMO is the more important piece of the puzzle.

Okay, enough of my soap box. :)

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Well if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those as well.