Letter Assignment

English 150 Letter Assignment

Dear Writer, my experience with writing has had its ups and downs. The first writing that I can remember was in second grade: our teacher Mrs. Johnson asked our class to write about the life story of a rain drop. I was jazzed! My brother Dan had written this same assignment the year before, and I remembered and admired his work. But when I tried to duplicate his vision, I botched it and received a low grade. However, my second experience with writing was as wonderful as the first one had been disappointing. In sixth grade our class had a student teacher named Miss Merril who was stunningly beautiful. She took us out to a small grove of redwood trees on school grounds and asked us to write poems. To tell the truth, I didn't even know what a poem was; but for Miss Merril, I did manage to describe the way the redwood branches stretched heavenward like arms, the way the leaves looked like fingers, and the way a Greyhound bus cruising by disrupted the peace and quiet. The next day she read my work to the class, and I was so proud. I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.

In junior high, I read Ray Bradbury, John Christopher, and C.S. Lewis stories, and began to imitate their imaginative styles.

In high school, I had three fine writing teachers: Ray Schellbread, Gloria Markoff, and Mr. Bacchus. (Imagine, I can still remember their names nearly 20 years later!) I wrote poetry, fiction, and essays for all of them and gradually my confidence in my abilities grew. In Mrs. Markoff's creative writing class, I even wrote a 20 page poem entitled "The Tower," which she had me read from a chair stacked up on a table. She got me so excited about writing, in fact, that I restarted the school's defunct literary magazine and helped to fund its publication by putting on two readings of student poetry and prose in the school's theater!

Then graduation came, shortly after which my parents threw me out. It was a depressing time, and I didn't write much beside odds and ends in a journal. Pitiful as this was, however, the journal did keep some small spark alive, dimly glowing, struggling not to quit. I kept three spiral notebooks (one a year), in which I described a few failed relationships, my travels hitchhiking across country a couple of times, dozens of lackluster jobs, and my struggle to find the truth in my life.

Then college. I went to Humboldt State University and studied first journalism, then English. In English I shifted from writing poetry, to detective stories, to literary short stories. I also studied with my two favorite writing teachers of all time: Jorie Graham and Jim Galvin, who now teach at the University of Iowa. Jorie taught poetry, and Jim taught fiction. They helped to reignite my interest in writing so much that by my senior year I was editing the school's literary magazine and applying to graduate school in creative writing at their alma mater, University of Iowa.

Unfortunately, I was turned down. And because I had not even bothered to apply elsewhere (which you should normally do!), I joined the army to pay for graduate school in the future. I really wrote almost nothing for four years, and my intellectual life was reduced to near nothing. I drank beer, watched TV, and waited for my time to end. I was the closest thing to I've experienced to hell on earth.

Afterwards, I reapplied to grad school and was accepted at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where I studied creative writing and English for three years. I studied there with a number of professional writers, none of whom were particularly good teachers. But I did pick up enough from them to begin to develop and publish my work. I also began to teach college composition in order to pay for my tuition.

The rest is recent history. Since 1988 I've been teaching high school and college English. I've taught people your age, as well as people older than most of your parents. I am still very interested in creative writing, especially short stories and novels. I hope that I will be able to help you share in that love of reading and writing. Thanks for the read!

Dear Writer, now that you've read my life saga as a writer, I'd like you to tell me about your experience with writing. The assignment is a nutshell is to write me a one-page letter (single-spaced) about your history as a writer. (You're welcome to write more, if you need to, but no more than two pages.) I'm particularly interest in your honesty--please don't tell me it's all been roses! Just remember to be specific!

Other things you might spill (when you toss out the beans!):

1) Tell me about your successes and failures.

2) Tell me about how you generally feel about writing and writing classes.

3) Tell me what happens to you when you write.

4) Tell me what most teachers have usually said about your writing and whether you agree with them or not.

(Closing note: I don't ask you about your past experiences to hold this history against you, but rather to learn how I can personally help you as a student. I surely can't do that unless I know something about your history.--Dave)