Not Wrong, Write!

Remember English class? Or rather, all of those English classes you took, year after year? Some were probably better than others, perhaps you preferred the teacher, or the classmates you had a certain year. If you ask most people about their English class experiences, chances are they don’t look back on those classes as an all around good time. But why is that? There are other reasons, but a popular one is that the assignments were flat out boring.

If you had to choose between creating a story, or writing about a character’s transformation through the course of a novel, what would you choose? Most would go with choice one. It’s simply more interesting. Not only are you thinking in a more creative and exciting way, but you are also practicing the writing skills which English classes are attempting to teach you. So why are kids forced to write analytical essays? It certainly is a good style to learn, and should be practiced, but within reason.

Writing creative stories should be a higher priority then writing restricted essays. Students shouldn’t be penalized for not meeting a word count, or adding in extra thoughts besides the expected because by holding back the creative capacity within each writer, their full potential isn’t being reached. We don’t become better writers every time we analyze something. After a while, we learn to loathe the repetitive process of spewing meaningless words onto a tired piece of paper. When we write in a creative style, it’s always new, always exciting, and because of that we get better, and we have a good time while doing it.

It is because of this that teachers should change the “norm” of assignments. They need to come to an understanding that creative writing is a genuinely important skill that is superior to that of an analytical essay, due to the excitement which occurs through writing it and the long term effects that the writer experiences.