An Analysis of Unrestricted Writing

In Ninth Grade, Mrs. Motsenbocker taught us the helpful but all too restricting Schaffer style of writing. It served its purpose, but hindered most attempts at cracking into our writing potential, attempts to write to the best of our abilities in whatever way serves us best. Tenth Grade came, and Ms. Greene taught us to attempt to break free of Schaffer's grasp. I tried, but the year of forced rigidity still had its influence on me. Then came Menendian. Mr. Menendian threw us into the deep end; the ones that learned to swim were the ones that survived. And I came out of his class able to swim laps with relative ease. Was I a bad writer before Eleventh Grade? No, but that stressful year did wonders to sharpen my abilities.

This leaves me with an interesting perspective. As I read the article "'Once There Were Two Towers': Describing Tragedy to Children After 9/11" on Student Pulse, a website of essays written by students (mostly college age, I assume), I couldn't help but notice the free style of writing, the kind I have grown to use. For example, the author of this article, Joshua Feblowitz, repeatedly uses the pronoun "we" in reference to the things "we" as a nation have done to convey the trauma of 9/11 to children who either were not alive at the time or were too young to remember it or understand the implications and significance of this historically tragic event. There are times when Feblowitz goes on for a whole paragraph without citing and discussing something but rather speaking relevantly on the subject (although, I must admit, this is rather due largely to the fact that the source of his article is an event rather than a piece of literature, as is commonly the subject of my essays). From Mr. Menendian's class, I have learned to write about a subject or piece of evidence as I see fit, not limiting myself to the "two sentences of commentary" that was forced on me with Schaffer style.

Feblowitz pulls evidence for analysis from various sources discussing the topic at hand, just as Mr. Menendian taught us to (optionally, I must point out) add literary criticism into our articles as a means of showing different points of view on the subject at hand. He writes the article in such a way as to not bore the reader with overly technical and ancient-sounding vocabulary, while also not sacrificing a feeling of intelligence and validity in his points. This article is an example of the type of writing that I strive for with each of my essays, something that I believe I am able to achieve thanks to my education (natural talent helps too).