Who I am as a reader - My Process Sheet

            The big question to me is what makes me a writer?  There have been many times where I look at myself in my English Composition class and wonder if my writing will ever improve.  The idea of writing a “college essay” runs through my head countless times as I write essays back and fourth.  The doubt of ever receiving a good grade in the class gives me the chills to even continue writing.  Writing has honestly been one of my worse enemies in school.  From the day I walked into college as a “writer” until this day of writing this Place Portrait essay as a second semester freshman student.  But as I wrote this essay, it gave me flashbacks to the worse days of my life to the best days of my life.  It’s given me a whole different view on how well I could write, and how well I could imagine things to be.  I don’t know if it was just me viewing things in a pessimistic point of view or whether my writing skills may never be up to par.  This essay may help me to realize if I have proven myself to be a writer.

            This essay is based upon one place I've grown up in.  That place is Sunnyside.  The feelings of missing certain things in the neighborhood is shown through my Place Portrait.  I share some of the memories that I've experienced in the past and some of the most important memories I've faced as a person in Sunnyside.  I've learned how important it is to appreciate the things around you and the things you see.  Even though some parts of the neighborhood have gotten me angry, once I left, I never realized how much I actually miss those things.  How much I wished to stay.  It was a real home.

            My weakness in writing is on where to start.  In order for me to create a good essay, I need myself an outline structured in my head.  Sometimes it takes hours for me to process, sometimes it takes me a couple of days.  But the time process where I outline my essays fries my brain.  The term “brain fried” is really true.  When you tend to think endlessly about the same thing over and over again, you can’t seem to do it after a certain amount of time anymore.  Every single essay always needs a good beginning and that’s what troubles me.  Every first sentence I write, I question myself and wonder “Did I intrigue the reader?”  This was a big reason on why I would write one paragraph into the essay, throw it away, and restart it again.  It’s like if you don’t have a good first sentence, your essay is automatically boring and that’s what I definitely need to work on.

            I would have to say that my best piece of writing was my Literacy Autobiography.  It was this essay because I didn’t outline a story in my head, it came to me quicker than I’ve ever written anything in this class.  It was a breeze.  I can’t say that since it was a breeze, it was my best piece of writing, no.  I was saying it was my best piece of writing because as easy as it was for me, I still tried to put depth into the story.  I felt like I intrigued the reader right away, and even kept the reader in suspense for awhile.  I threw my 9 year old imagination into the story and wrote about my feelings at that age.  It felt like the good old days of writing all over again.