Writing has become robotic. Since middle school, the same essay formats has been drilled into student’s heads over and over. You start with an intro paragraph to introduce your topic. The last sentence of this paragraph becomes your thesis, which is your main idea throughout the paper. Then, in the following paragraphs comes the concrete details. They are direct quotes, and the following 2-3 sentence is your analysis on how it relates to your main idea. Why do students, from elementary school to college hate writing? I think it’s because writing has become simple finding pieces that fit into a given predecided organizer, causing writing to lack variance and personality.

Think about it. How many earlier writing experiences for students spent filling out the same graphic organizer repeatedly? While this does help many students organize their thoughts, it has taught us one single way of writing with no personal thought.  Writing has become robotic- students simply find a lists of facts and spit them verbatim in their essay, and then use evidence from a resource to prove their point. A graphic organizer is the perfect example of this. It literally tells students what to write, and all they have to do is find the correct piece of the puzzle. As an example, students will say my essay is about how power corrupts. With no personal thought into the matter, find evidence that supports this and then analyze it in the next few sentences. They repeat this action constantly for each piece of evidence, until there conclusion, where they sum up there evidence and explain how it all relates back to the main idea. No variance from the exact same format. It’s like working in a factory, where each person has one specific job every day. The product may change- yesterday you made pants, today you’re making shirts, tomorrow you’ll make shorts- but that person stitches the same stitches over and over. Over and Over. Just produce the same thing. The only way you’re guaranteed a good final product, is if you stay with the same stitches. Over and Over. It’s no wonder factory jobs are some of the most tedious jobs around.

I often tell myself, I hate writing, or I’m not good at writing. I always reminded of how I can sit in front of a computer for hours, and the cursor will be the only thing on the entire screen to whole time. I love reading and keep a journal of my own personally writings, yet dread any literature class- especially if we have to read any stories, no matter how good the actually book may be. Even before the teacher’s instruction, I highlight important quotes, ideas, and characters as I read. These actions have been drilled into my head, with no personal though or questioning. I am a reading robot working in factory. Repeat the same steps over and over. This is how I’ve been schooled. Repeat. Over and Over. This is why I chose to write my first blog as a personal piece, so today my writing feels like an actual person- not a robot.