My writing experience
Being “forced” to think and write critically for the first time in high school, for me, was a horrifying experience. To this day, whenever I have to write, whether it’s an evaluation for one of my junior sailors, or a business email, I dread the thought of having to undertake such a task.
In the previous two years of high school, I did not have to do any real writing. My English classes were fairly easy as they provided me a means to watch movies based on literary works, such as the 1972 version of Romeo and Juliet, and to goof off with friends. We had reading assignments, but instead of writing, we had to do oral presentations. These never really bothered me so much because they were five minute speeches and then it was over. I also attempted to take a journalism class in the ninth grade. I say attempted because it was a last minute sign up and I didn’t want to take Home Economics. The only memories that I have of that class was when some local news casters came to the school and they talked about how they got into journalism.
The first time I had to do serious writing was in Mr.Jacobson’s English class. I was attending D’Evelyn Jr/Sr. High School. The school was situated between the boarders of Wheat Ridge and Golden, Colorado. It had been converted from an elementary school into a school that supported seventh through twelfth grades, with less than a thousand students total. In order to fully support the students, the administrators brought in six temporary buildings. These temporary buildings smelled like a house built in the 1920’s. They had maybe three to four windows, the walls were paper thin, which growing up in Colorado made classes in the winter time even more “enjoyable.” They also supported two classrooms, which if the room got quiet enough, you could hear the teacher or class in the next room over. The exteriors were a bland sand color and had a giant brown and white sign indicating which building was which. The heaters were always on the fritz, it would be uncomfortably hot in the warm months and, if I think about it, colder than it was outside during the winter. I can’t say for certainty that the teachers there had done this on purpose or not, but it frustrated me even more to be in class.
Being in the “classrooms” was difficult, but I had the great fortune of being in Mr. Jacobson’s English class for two years in a row. Mr. Jacobson was a very tall man, probably between 6’5” and 6’7” and was incredibly skinny. His shirts would hang off of him, like clothes being hung on a laundry line. He was probably pushing 170 pounds on a good day. I’m pretty sure that he was a runner earlier in life because he was always wearing bright blue Adidas running shoes and it would explain his slender frame. His dark blonde hair was always pushed over into a comb-over, but I do not think that he ever gave the thought of just cutting it off. But the most memorable feature about him was his beard. His beard was a spitting image of Abraham Lincoln’s beard, with the exception of his blonde mixed with gray hair.
Mr. Jacobson loved English, or at least he learned to really like it over the years. Regardless of which side he was on in regards to the topic, he could recite every story, poem or essay word for word. I remember him reciting the words of William Blake, Robert Frost, and even most of Beowulf from memory. He had such a passion for these works. To me, he really made me want to learn, but writing was something left to be desired.
The problem with writing for me is, I really do not know how to write. Sure, I have written about thirty or so evaluations for my junior personnel in the past ten years. Heck, I even have to write my own. But that kind of writing is very different. There are certain rules to writing evaluations. They can only be eighteen lines long. The top two lines are for, what the Navy calls, hard break-outs, such as Sailor the Year or number one sailor in a command of one hundred and eighty, and so on. Then you get into the “meat and potatoes” of the person’s evaluation. But even then you only get maybe three to four lines per bullet point. The last two or three lines, are for the Commanding Officer's statement on why person X should be promoted to the next pay grade. After writing or looking over so many over the past years, you get better at it. The same could be said for writing. However, being in the Navy, I have not really had the greatest of opportunities to write.
Getting back to Mr. Jacobson’s class, he gave us the assignment of writing a three page paper on our thoughts on William Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Now, we run into problems. Problem one, I could not for the life of me figure out what they were saying. I still can’t. It’s not that I can’t read it, I can read just fine. The real problem is, I can’t wrap my head around the language. I knew that it was written in English, but it’s old English and in my head I couldn’t understand it. In order to help me, I had to get my mom to run me up to the closest Barnes and Noble to get the Cliff Notes for MacBeth. Incidentally, MacBeth must have been a hot topic for most English classes in Jefferson County because they were all sold out. Devastated, I returned home and began to get started. I read and re-read the play about a thousand times, but nothing made sense.
Minutes were passing into hours and I had not committed anything to paper. Hours were passing by like the pages of my text book. Finally, at three in the morning I had had enough. It was time for bed. The next day, I spent every class prior to English working on something for this paper. Yes, I know it was preferred to be typed, but handwritten must be just as good, right? After each toll of the bell indicating the class I was in was done, I knew I was getting closer to my doom as a critical writer and so was my confidence. I was sweating, furiously writing, my grip on the pen loosening. Nothing that I was writing made any sense. My handwriting, normally small, was getting bigger and bigger in order to fill the lines on the paper. I could have used one of those giant novelty pencils to help me write. Everything around me was a blur. Lunch. What lunch? I remember stuffing something down my gullet, but what it was, I can’t remember. I had two classes before English and Spanish was a wash that day followed by Math. My Math teacher would not let me work on my assignment as she said I should have already been done with it. Couldn’t argue that point. As the bell rang, my heart started racing again.
As I walked from one temporary building to the one that Mr. Jacobson’s class was in, I couldn’t help but be nervous. The very first thing he said was for us to turn in our papers. I passed mine up to person in front of me and the rest if the class was just a blur.
Three days had passed since I turned in my paper. I had completely forgotten that it was the day that he would return my work. I stared at the paper for a minute or two, in complete awe. I had gotten a C-. I was ecstatic. I had passed that milestone. For me that was the most challenging thing that I had done at the time. I was tired, but to me, I was triumphant in my task. For someone who couldn’t understand Shakespeare, getting a C- was pretty good. Even though I may have felt elated to not have completely failed, to this day that experience left an indelible mark on me and how I write.
