When I was a young student in primary school I can remember most of the reading and writing I was asked to do by my teachers was based on synthesis and summary. We would read some small excerpt, sit around and talk about what we had just read and try to understand it all, and then write a small piece on what I had just read and discussed. It never was more that a short paragraph or so.
When I became intellectually capable of beginning to be able to think and read and write in more of a creative way the schools laid it on me. Instead of starting to work these creative juices that were flowing through my young mind, they began to train me for CSAP. When I was in early middle school the state started putting way more pressure on teachers and schools to have their students preforming at a proficient level that that is what our total focus turned to. Instead of letting me create a piece of beautiful poetry that I could carried with me for the rest of my life, I got what I like to call the five paragraph treatment. That's it. Every time we would work on writing it would be in this stupid, juvinile five paragraph form. Intro, Body 1, Body 2, Body 3, conclusion, transition sentences, firstly, second, then, after that, and Lastly. These were tools of the traid. I didnt need to have any new, individual, thought provoking ideas. All I needed was this english formula (and I hate math so that was a bummer). They took all of the creacivity and unique thought out of me.
How does this effect me as a student of heigher educational learning. I believe that this style of education that has been placed on the schools to monitor for "the best possible education" did not prepare me for this level of learning half as much as it could have and I would have liked it to. I believe that I am developing into a good and for sure profecient writer here at CSU but that is thanks to several of my teachers here at the university that have pushed me. I walked into my freshman year having the skills to write a damn good but completely basic paper. I struggled through my first two years if not still today to find my own voice that wasnt just words being plugged into a topic on the page. So even though I feel like I am realy finding this voice of mine that I have looked for for so long, I still find myself falling back into that bland boaring format from time to time and will hopefully someday truly find myself as a writer of my own style.