English has been my favorite subject ever since I was in middle school. I love to read and write. While attending MCC I have had the opportunity to take different English courses. I have taken Composition 101, Advanced Composition, Children's Literature, and now Creative Writing. While taking my other English classes I learned how to write research papers, persuasive papers, critiques, etc. All my writing was formal and very restricted. I was told what to write and how to write it. There was really no creativity required.
I signed up for this course because I needed another English credit and because I wanted something different. I wanted to take an English course that would be fun and allow me to write without so many restrictions. I read in the syllabus that we would be doing short fiction and poetry. That was the exact change I needed in writing. When I began taking this course I really struggled with letting my writing flow. It was a challenge for me to be creative and to write something that didn't involve research first. I had to be creative in order to come up with characters, scenes, and dialogues for my short stories and poetry. My writing skills and creativity has definitely improved during this semester. I can honestly say that when we did our first journal assignment in Module one, which looking back now was rather easy, I was still stuck. The easier the assignments were the harder it was for me to grasp because I kept complicating things way to much. However, once I got started I notice an improvement in my writing and my confidence about my writing.
With each short story writing assignment I was able to better create what I wanted to write. With each assignment it took a shorter amount of time to begin to come up with ideas on what to write about. I would say with the fiction stories what improved the most was my ability to actually create a story and have it flow along smoothly. I was able to create characters and dialogue for them. I enjoyed writing the short stories and thought it to be rather fun when trying to come up with characters and the different plots.
Now poetry was a bit different. I love to read poetry but I admit that when it comes to writing it I have a fear of being harshly judged. When writing poetry I realized that the best poems are the ones that come within. I knew that if I was able to just let myself go and open up that I would be able to create a better poem. Once I was able to open up my next step was to learn how to structure my poem. I would capitalize every first letter and not put periods where they needed to be. By the end of the poetry modules I knew how to structure my poem, that only the first letter of the sentence should be capitalized, and that the period she be only at the end of that specific sentence.
I have enjoyed taking this course and having the opportunity to be creative. I have learned different writing techniques from this class that I know I would not have been able to learn from my other writing classes. I have learned that it is okay to take risks when writing and to open up. When you write about something close to you the writing has more passion and meaning behind it. I learned how to receive a simple instruction and to take it to different lengths. I was able to be creative and think differently. I had fun taking this class, challenging myself, and trying new writing styles.
