The Importance of Writing

One Sunday quite a while ago I had a conversation with a friend. She was wondering why schools always teach writing. Her opinion was that once you where taught the basics there was really no need to lean any more. Once you know how to write you don't need anymore instruction. She new how to write so she didn't understand why at her school they had to cover it every year. I am probably not saying this quite the way she said it, but this is what I got out of what she said.

Now when I was young I did not like writing. It was like pulling teeth for my mother to get me to write anything. Part of this came from that fact that I didn't like having to write long paragraphs and papers that I would actually write out by hand. This problem was solved when I figured out how to type on the computer. The other problem I had was what do I write? How do I say what I want to say? The assignment would tell me to write something, but not how to write it. This has been solved when we got IEW(Institute for Excellence in Writing), which is an amazing program by the way. I did at some point realize that if I wanted to get anywhere in the world I would have to write, so I did try more, and I tried also not to give my mom so much grief about it. The only thing that I find really bizarre is that ever since I was old enough to understand that people write books, I have wanted to write books. I use to dream about becoming a famous author. I have not lost this desire to write books. I just find it weird that as much as I hated writing I loved books and wanted to write books.

Now everything has come together and I am now a very very big fan of writing. I love poetry, and enjoy trying my hand at some. This is a 108 degree change for me.

This friend got me thinking as to why we need to learn writing. Why do we cover so much? Why is there such a big emphasis on it in school? This is the conclusion that I have come to.

You can write 'I like chocolate'. but does that really express much? If I said wrote 'I like chocolate', and I like peanut butter"; would you be able to tell I like chocolate more that I like peanut butter? No. But If I wrote 'chocolate has a wonderful delightful creamy flavor, that makes me feel happy. Chocolate makes a wonderful dessert for any occasion.' And for the other, 'peanut butter is a creamy condiment, that is great on sandwiches.' Now you can tell I like chocolate better than peanut butter.

You can write anything, but can you write it well, and express it with grace and ease? Can you say what you are thinking, and express you ideas well? I most certainly am not very good at expressing what I am thinking in writing or speech. But I have a blog that I write on anyways, and if I don't practice I wont get better.

Being able to share what you are thinking, write a book, poem, or anything at all. You need to be able to write with elegance, and ease. Writing is a key form of communication in our society, so it makes sense that it is one of the things taught most to us. We cannot share what we have learned with out being able to write. If we cannot write well it does not makes us seem very intelligent. But we if we know how to write and thoroughly understand the art of writing, then we can write well. We need to be able to communicate our thoughts clearly. This is not something that is at all easy. I have found that I am not very well able to express my thought even with speech, and I find talking much easier than writing. We need to practice and work on writing to develop this skill.

Being able to communicate well has been one of my parents' goals from the time that I was little. Though we have had a lot of trouble finding a writing program that actually explained the process to us has be extremely difficult. *Enter IEW* Now all our problems have been solved!

Anyway this post is my ramblings about why writing is important, there are tons of other reasons to be sure, as to why writing is necessary, but this is the one that has stuck out to me the most. I hope this has not been very boring for you all.

Blessings

~Elizabeth