Last semester, I enrolled in English 101. My initial thoughts were that the class was going to be OK because I assumed that my professor would understand that everybody understands writing differently. I looked forward to writing because I thought that it was fun in high school. I was able to fill out all the requirements and add a little bit of my signature sarcastic flare. I had no idea what to expect from college English but I hoped that it would allow me to continue writing like I did in high school.

I was very wrong. The first thing that my English professor said to the class was, “You will not be adding any ‘fluff’ to your writing because I personally don’t like it. It makes it to hard to understand what you are trying to say sometimes.” At first, I was like “OK. No biggie!” but then I got my first essay back. It had a passing grade on it but I still felt uneasy. I knew that what I had turned in was not my best piece by any means but it still made me wonder if I really had any talent at writing. I decided to brush it off(a passing grade is a passing grade) and try harder on the next essay. Unfortunately, the next essay was the rhetorical essay.

The rhetorical essay was the first ever essay that I had gotten a failing grade on. Partly because I had misread the prompt and because I have no clue as to how the human thought process works with other people. Thankfully, my professor allowed me to redo the essay but needless to say, I was panicking. Why was my writing so bad all of a sudden? What went wrong? Could I even fix the problem if there was one? These questions permeated my thoughts every day for the entire duration of that semester. Naturally, I chose the pin the blame on something else other than my own personal fault.

The one thing that I could discern as different than before was that I no longer enjoyed writing. I didn’t enjoy it mainly because I was no longer allowed to take any pride in what I had created. No ‘fluff’, no unique perspective, no personal flare was acceptable in my essays any more. I was basically painting a picture with faded paint for my audience. I hated it! I personally believe that freshman writing should include some sort of way for us to expand on the way that we prefer to write. Yes, I agree that it is equally important to learn to write other ways, especially if it is useful for your profession, but it is also important to not force a complete and total change.