literacy essay 3rd draft and cover page.docx

7/27/2019 literacy essay 3rd draft and cover page.docx

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Brion Gregerson

Mr. Ludlow- Mattson

English 114

September 13, 2013

When writing this literacy essay, the one main thing I wanted to accomplish was

stating and proving that academic writing is not always the best form of writing.

Academic essay writing is often acclaimed as the best, but in writing this essay, I

expressed that journalistic writing can be every bit as educational as academic writing for

an English course. I accomplished what I set out to do since I think I did well in

expressing my argument that journalistic writing is on the same level as academic

writings in many facets. I would say that one thing that I learned from writing this literary

essay was that as I continued to write the essay I really bought into what I was trying to

convey. Even at first I may have not believed that journalistic writing was on the level of

academic writing, but as I wrote and finished this essay, I convinced myself that it was

indeed as educational and on the same level as academic writing. I found that convincing

yourself first is the best way for authors to show readers that their argument is valid. The

author has to whole-heartedly believe in what they write or their audience wont believe

their points either.

I never really thought about comparing journalistic writing to academic writing

before I wrote this literary narrative, and I found writing this essay enlightening to the

different forms of writing that can be considered great. Reflecting on this journalism class

has reinforced my thinking that writing can be great in several different forms, and it

made me realize how truly difficult writing for my school newspaper actually was.


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Writing In a New Way

The journalism classes that I took in high school showed me a new way of writing

and reading that I was very unaccustomed to, as I had to adapt to an entirely different

form of writing. This was the first form of writing that I undertook that relied solely on

my own creativity, rather than being given tasks to write by an instructor. Writing for the

school newspaper gave me the opportunity to express my ideas and style of writing in a

way that is simply impossible to do in an ordinary academic English course. I enrolled in

a journalism class when I was a junior in high school, and I was assigned to write in the

sports section of my school newspaper; I did not know what to expect out of this class but

I soon found out that it would be one of the most challenging and complex writing

courses that I have ever taken. It would also turn out to be possibly the most enlightening

form of writing that I have incurred in my entire life. Through my experiences of writing

for the school newspaper, I learned that great writing can truly come in several different

forms, and that the most honest form of writing and reading comes from the creativity

that is sparked by the author of a journalistic story. In relation to my acquisition of

literacy, the one most significant thing that stood out for me from taking two years of

journalism was that I learned that an exquisite piece of writing can truly come from

anywhere and anyone; it can range from a high school student writing for their humble

newspaper, to the most highly praised authors and philosophers such as John Steinbeck

and Socrates.

On my first day writing for the school newspaper, I immediately realized that I

was going to undertake a form of writing that I had virtually no experience writing. To

add further difficulty, I had not generally paid close attention to newspapers throughout


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my life, based on the generation that I grew up with, where newspapers are becoming less

and less significant throughout the entire world. The one glaring difference that I soon

noted between journalistic writing and regular academic writing was that newspapers rely

more heavily on outside sources than almost any other form of academic writing.

Obtaining and using quotes throughout a newspaper article is the single biggest criteria

that turns an average story to a great one, as compared to academic writing, where quotes

from interviews are rarely needed in order to make for a great piece of writing. The one

other standout difference that I incurred taking this class was that my writing was

completely dependent on the events and happenings that occurred around my school,

which would never be consistent year to year, as compared to academic writing, where an

instructor can give the same writing assignment over and over, year after year, the only

difference being the students who write the assignment.

I ended up taking this class for two consecutive years, with my first year spent as

a staff writer, and then the editor of the sports section as a senior. These two years

allowed me to view the full spectrum of the journalism experience, as I spent one year

writing in a way that was new to me, and in the next year, I was tasked to read and edit

the writers' stories in my section. Through this, I was able to witness two ways of seeing

the same way of writing, both as a student, and as an instructor. As the editor, I was able

to be in a position that I had never been before- I was now showing new writers the way

of writing that I had learned only one year ago. This created a very interesting and

challenging dynamic, given I had to be critical and meticulous in correcting the writers in

the sports section since their knowledge of journalistic writing was generally minimal at

the start of the year. I had to guide them and enlighten them to write in a way that was not


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only difficult, but also new and unfamiliar. So due to these facts, this perhaps became a

more rigorous and detail oriented class than even my honors English class that I was also

taking in those years.

The students that worked on my high school newspaper generally take the class

for only one year, as juniors and seniors are the only ones that can write for the paper,

with the majority being seniors working on the paper for their first time. As a junior, I

was assigned to be a staff writer, with responsibilities such as finding interesting topics,

getting quotes from key figures, and writing the entire story under the tutelage of the

course instructor, who happened to also be my basketball coach. Having my basketball

coach be my instructor, particularly because I was writing in the sports section was a key

factor in my development of my journalistic writing ability since his knowledge of sports

combined with his instructing experience guided me to writing in a new way that was

very unnatural and foreign when I started the class. The first assignment that I did for the

school newspaper seemed at first to be a relatively simple assignment about football since

I was pretty well versed on this subject, but it turned out to be one of the most difficult

writing assignments that I have had in my entire life. I had read the school newspaper

several times in the few years prior to my Junior year and thought that it would be an

easy subject and much easier to write a story compared to an English essay, but it turned

out to be the exact opposite. Writing this one assignment took me more than two weeks

to write, with more drafts than I had ever wrote for one assignment in any writing course;

it took me more than ten drafts to finally be ready for publication, and due to these time

consuming, tedious corrections, this was also the most frustrating piece of writing that I

ever wrote. However, when my first story was published, I felt a different joy than


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compared to when I finish an English essay. My work was presented before the entire

school, not just one teacher. This joy led me to keep seeking that same feeling when I

published my first story, and launched my career as a high school journalist.

After my junior year spent as a writer for my school newspaper, I decided to take

journalism again as a senior, and this year, I was assigned to be the sports editor, a huge

step up from being only a writer as I was in the previous year; being the editor gave me a

lot of control of the sports section, as I had the final say in many stories, but it also came

with the most responsibilities, including writing stories myself, as well as overseeing all

the other writes in my section. Editing my peers stories was a great challenge to me, but I

was determined to lead my sports section to have great stories that were both very

interesting and well written. This was the main difference between my two years in that

class- one year I was relying on the instructor to be my editor since we had no student

editors that year, and the next year, I was the one that was in control of overseeing an

entire section of the school newspaper. The main problem that I incurred as an editor was

when correcting my staff writer's articles; they were generally spot on if they were to be

read as English essays, but rather, they had to be read as sports columns that were written

with numerous intricacies, which I had to remind them of over and over. They were so set

on a certain way of writing just like I was only a year ago, and it was very difficult for

them, as it was for me, to adjust to this new way of writing that was going to be required

of them.

Through my two years of writing for my high school newspaper, I was shown a

form of writing that is not generally seen as academic writing, but from what I

experienced, journalistic writing is every bit as fulfilling as any academic essay writing,


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as it stresses the unparalleled need for creativity and self expression, which are two key

concepts in essay writing that makes those writings great in my opinion; essays generally

limit the level of self expression, so in a way, journalistic writing is a very true to the

writer and their own style as they don't need to conform to a set of instructions that comes

with academic essay writing.

literacy essay 3rd draft and cover page.docx

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