"Justice" by July Third

Biographies don’t do a person justice.  Listing off things I have done while someone else takes their time to write it all down, twisting my words to make sense to them. 

Interviews don’t do a person justice. Millions could watch me from their televisions as I answer “deep” scripted questions, and then feel as if they knew me. Watching me to waste their time, barely paying attention. Five minutes afterwards I would be forgotten until the next time they heard my name. 

Grades don’t do a person justice. I can tell you I have spent too long studying for tests that I won’t ever be able to understand. I can tell you I never read that English book but somehow crafted the best essay you have ever read. Kids look around the classroom and “know” who is smart from judging off the number in the teachers book, but have any of them had a chance to ask who puts in the most effort? 

Public speaking doesn’t do a person justice. I could talk all day about nothing and entertain you more than I would if I was told to give a presentation. The list carries on but if I continue, the repetition is too much for someone as impatient as I to handle. 

Writing does a person justice. Writing is the time to let your thoughts flow and to convince someone your point without ever feeling rushed. You can hear my voice through writing and my personality flow through every word I chose. I have not said a single “fact” about myself but you can understand me better than you could through an interview or a conversation. 

You are hearing my thoughts when you read my writing. You are hearing them inside your own head and picturing me. Without knowing it you have created an idea of me. Just from my writing. I never said, I was born July 3^rd, 1999. I didn’t need to because those facts aren’t as important as my thoughts. You may not know that my favorite color is the heather grey that’s painted on my bedroom walls, but then again, you never ask such a trivial question, when there’s so much more to learn. Who wants to learn my favorite meal when I could share my thoughts on the world? I don’t want to repeat myself, you know how I dislike that- yet did it ever occur to you that you pictured me and my voice while you read this in your head and you now understand me without even knowing my name? 

Writing does a person justice.

"Why Writing Matters" by JK Rowling

Someone once told me “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go”. Over time my writing has matured in style, vocabulary, organization, and creativity. However, my realization of its significance is relatively recent. I had always been writing ever since I was younger but never fully understood its value until it started being more involved in my academic career. Writing impacts people tremendously, whether it is someone else’s work or their own work. Writing is important to me because it’s a form of expression and an essential skill to have in my academic career.

After learning how to write when I was younger, I began to keep a journal. Whenever I got frustrated with my parents or sister, which wasn’t often, I had no idea how to handle my emotions. Unfortunately this often led me to scream and fight with them.  There was so much I wanted to say but didn’t know how to put it into words so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I had so much anger built up, but no safe outlet to express it. Writing in my journal, gave me the freedom to say the things I always wanted to say and let my inner madman fly. It felt alleviating to put my emotions on paper and would immediately make me feel better. It quickly became my therapy. I even surprised myself when I began to write poetry after a tough break up with my first boyfriend. Being able to put my emotions on paper helped me through my heartbreak. I kept a separate journal for all my poems, which I’m glad I did because I love going back to read them and laugh at myself. I had never thought I could be creative enough to write poetry, but then I realized it didn’t matter if it was good; it was about how it made me feel. Not all writing is perfect and makes sense to other people. That is what makes personal writing so great and liberating. 

Throughout my education I’ve needed to be able to write more and more as the years pass and I take harder classes. I’ve been taking SOL’s dedicated to only writing ever since elementary school till just last year as a junior. I can’t even tell you the number of essay’s I’ve turned in and have been graded on, which doesn’t even include my English class. I have also had to write research papers in history and Latin. Even what I write for homework gets graded on.  All the AP exams have a writing section of the test. However writing has never been so important in my academic career until now. Because I’m applying to college my writing is going to be judged and evaluated. Writing a good or bad essay can determine my future at that college, which is why it’s so important to have writing as a skill. Writing a good essay is what really captures people and seals the deal to an acceptance to college. It became clear to me this year that being able to write well was essential for succeeding in all my classes, because you write in every single class, whether its for homework, essays, short answers, or in class assignments. This makes writing so important to me because I want to achieve my goals in school and succeed.

People frequently forget that writing is all around us. It’s the thank you letter you write to your aunt, it’s the emails you send at work, the papers you write for school, your private journal entries, or even text messages to your friends. You use writing in your personal and professional life everyday. For me, I use writing at school and at home. I’m a very private person and being able to write down my feelings, fears, and dreams allows me to be free of built up tensions and is my form of expression. Writing is also my academic strength and I enjoy doing something I’m good at.

"Why Writing Matters" by Victoria Lemmings

Writing matters because writing is communicating. We all want our voices to be heard, and writing provides an outlet for that passion of self-expression. Writing is taking a complex idea that is living and growing in your head and transferring it onto a piece of paper so that it can be shared with and appreciated by others who may have not previously seen things the way you see them. Writing is the preservation of the knowledge of others all around you, a way to keep track of history and conserve the words of those who came before us. Writing offers new perspectives and expands the scope of our minds. I have found that when spoken words fail, the written word speaks.

In the scope of the world, writing is necessary to keep history alive and to help us remember what has come before us. Historians write in history books so that we remember the past of our country and the surrounding world, not only so that we don’t make the same mistakes again, but also to commemorate and celebrate the accomplishments of our pasts. Storytellers write down the cultures and beliefs of a people so that their culture can be preserved into the future. A hundred years from now, the people of 3014 will hopefully look back at a novel by John Green to examine how teenagers lived in the 21^st century and use our example to shape their own. Without writing, our achievements, greatness, and also downfalls will cease to exist with the inevitable passage of time.

In my personal life, writing helps me make sense of the world around me. Sometimes it’s easier to write out why I’m upset or annoyed than to tell someone. In the safety blanket of a worn notebook, I feel confident because my voice won’t break and I won’t stutter. With writing, my words will flow onto the page and suddenly I realize that in my hastily scribbled words I’ve discovered more about myself than I knew before. Sometimes my upcoming “word vomit” unintentionally reveals what I’ve been thinking the whole time but been too confused to comprehend. Seeing these thoughts on paper offers me much-needed clarity. Furthermore, writing opens a doorway to the amazing creativity living inside my mind. I have so much going on up in my head, and so many imaginary scenarios and fictitious characters that are just itching to find expression in a piece of creative writing. However, in my day-to-day life, this creativity often lays dormant, hiding under the thousands of other concerns clogging my brain. But when I apply myself to creative writing, these characters break out of their shackles and bubble to the surface. Writing provides the key to their previously closed doors, an outlet for the endless stories inside my head.

Academically, writing is the way to communicate understanding and knowledge. I write in almost all my classes on homework, notes, and assessments to convey my retention of the material. How else will my teacher have tangible evidence that I’m learning anything? Someone can be extremely intelligent and store a world of knowledge up in his brain, but if he doesn’t have an outlet to prove that he possesses this great gift, there’s no point. His intelligence doesn’t benefit anyone when it’s just locked away. Academic writing teaches students to break the locks on their brains in order to express themselves and share their wealth of knowledge that’s too often hidden. This expression is a form of communication that is a vital skill which must be taught and practiced.

What about writing to learn? This is essential. Whenever I have a topic for school that I’m confused about, I try putting some time aside to write about it. I’ve found that, similar to writing out my feelings in a journal to realize my emotions, writing to learn academically has significant benefits. Writing gets one’s cognitive juices flowing and brings underlying ideas and themes bubbling to the surface and ready for use. Writing to learn gives one the chance to think endlessly and fully. If someone learns how to write well they will think well because writing is just documented thinking. We have to think to learn.

Ultimately, writing is irrevocably significant to the world, to schools, and to the individual. Write to learn, write to communicate, write to discover new things. Write for academics and write to think, but above all else write for yourself. 

"Save the Crazy Dreams" by Cadence Sinclair

Why do people write? What exactly compels us to pick up pens and write mythical tales, or current event papers, or little scraps of poetry? I wanted to dive as deeply as possible into this often overlooked premise, so I deferred to one of my favorite books. Quoting John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, “There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught.” Essentially, despite the inevitable fate of all beings, the world powers on, and writing carries out the role of consoling the busy humans within it.

In the long run, humans have the choice as to how they will spend their lives. People write to fill up the space between now and the end. We write to save the crazy dreams inside our heads, maybe preserve them for future centuries. But the best writing happens in the moment, not necessarily with the intention of sharing it with the world. It is the rawness of humanity that exists in those “madman” writing moments, where we pour out endless, wild thoughts onto paper, without regret. We finally catch a glimpse of our inner voices, and that is maybe why writing matters.

But also, in my personal life, writing acts as a means of thoughtful contemplation of the world around me. I discovered that analytical literary essays were a strongpoint for me. Thus, I write for fun about books. I extract thoughts and ideas from them and elaborate with my own insight. I am a reader, so I love dissecting books. Essentially, I write about what other people write. Writing is like a telescope, shifting my perspective to whole other worlds.

Ultimately, writing matters in my little bubble of existence for countless reasons. Without it, life would be devoid of meaning. I would have no way to scribble down the overflowing well of ideas within me. Restlessness would settle in. Insomnia would occur nightly. I am not just speaking for myself when I say that the world would go crazy.

In terms of academics, I love when my teachers incorporate writing into a more unlikely subject, such as chemistry. I can reveal the more subdued layer of meaning. The underlying purpose emerges when I sit down and write what happened, what I think, etc. If writing were not a part of my academic life, I wonder if I would even be a successful student. I certainly would not be a reflective learner. More precisely, the process of learning would lack inventiveness and a deeper sense of purpose.

You can gain such greater perspective with writing. No matter the class, writing digs deep into the virtue of “Why?”, and acts as a brain-stimulator. Writing challenges students to a higher level of thinking that is not always achieved through mindless math exercises. Additionally, it serves as the bridge between the untamed thoughts within our heads, to a cohesive insightfulness ready to catch fire to the world.

On a global scale, writing promotes interconnectedness among societies. Whether it is utilized as a form of communication, pastime, entertainment, archive, or knowledge, writing reaches vast expanses of the human population. For instance, as a culture, we read our children bedtime stories that were written to soothe restless, juvenile minds. Therefore, writing fulfills the dimension of man that seeks to help. Broadly speaking, anything, from novels to newspapers, contains small, but meaningful universal truths. Across the ages, writing has represented, and continues to represent, the wisdom of mankind as a whole. It reveals the depth of our worldly insight. In essence, do we have the ability to view the universe through a camera lens that is not always so flattering to the subject? Writing plays the purpose, internationally, of exposing the rawness of man.