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Readings and Writings in College
The papers that I wrote about in college are to numerous to discuss them all, but these are stories that I recall the best. When I was a senior in college, I had an internship in the Charter Schools Office on campus. One of my requirements was to keep a daily journal of the things that I did in the office. The first problem with that was they didn't let me have very many responsibilities. So, my journal looked somewhat like this every day:
June 23
Today I answered the phones, cut out newspaper articles on various charter schools, filed some papers for Heather, and sent out letters. There really wasn't very much for me to do today.
This is what I really wanted to write, so that my professor would see this internship was pointless.
June 23
Today I ran stupid errands up and down the hall that had no significance to my internship whatsoever. I also found out that charter schools "do" have all the problems that are talked about in the paper. Finally, my boss, Mamie, treated me like the shit on the bottom of her shoe. She does this daily, and I think it makes her feel better.
I hated my internship more than anything. It lasted four very long months. The only thing it did for me was reinforce my negative opinion of charter schools.
The only reading time that I really received in college was spent reading textbooks. They were very boring. I can't remember one book that I thought was good. But I had to read them; I had to learn the discipline of not thinking about my boyfriend when I read about marketing strategies different firms had. I had to learn to not think about the spider that was crawling up my apartment wall when I read about different court cases for business law. I did get the reading done, and I did get good grades, and somehow I managed to graduate too!
Since I have been back in school, (you can read all about that in my next page, Teaching Days) I have run into a professor who wrote that I used too many exclamation points in my papers.
"EXCUSE ME! So, what you're telling me is that when I am teaching, you don't want me to use any expression, right?"
I thought the reason that he wrote this was because I had a 99% in his class, and he thought he should say something negative. That same professor asked me for copies of two lesson plans that I had made so he could use them in his Fall 2000 syllabus! I wanted to say "with or without exclamation points, sir?"
Anyway, through all the highs and lows of college reading and writing, I did improve in both areas. I feel confident that if someone gave me any topic to write on, with a little research, I could produce a good piece of writing. Part of this is because I have blessed with being decent in this area, but the other part is because of the background that I have been given. Each paper, essay, journal, and note has created the writer that I am. Now, I hope you'll read the last part of my autobiography; the part where I get to teach all that I have learned, and continue to learn............
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