Ever since a young age, I have enjoyed the act of writing. When I was in elementary and middle school, if I was bored, I would sit down and write out the first, middle, and last names of every family member and friend that I could think of. For a couple of years, I created The Farrugia Gazette, a newspaper I would pass out to my parents and siblings with such captivating articles as where we were traveling for Easter and individualized, way-too-specific horoscopes for each family member, including our dog. When I was in elementary school, I started writing in a journal every few days. I didn’t really record my feelings so much as write every single thing I had done since my last entry. It was a tedious process, but still I felt the desire to keep up with it.

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Even in English classes I have felt at home with writing, whether it was the simile-filled poem about a pond that I wrote in 8th grade or a comparative essay on disability from freshman year of college. I find enjoyment in writing academic papers just as much as I enjoy writing creatively. By writing in an academic genre, I have to look up research articles, which leads to learning new concepts in a field that I didn’t know much about before. Then, I can expand on what I’ve learned with my own ideas. It is empowering to realize how much can be learned through writing. Similarly, research can be done through creative writing, whether it is observational or introspective. Each genre yields new ideas and realizations for me in unique ways.

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However, as I grow older, I’m starting to learn that it isn’t sufficient for me to write only for myself, like I have done in the past. The reason I have learned through writing is because others were willing to express and share their thoughts and how they relate to bigger topics, like philosophies and social issues. To me, every piece of writing speaks to a greater relevance outside of it. I wrote the 8th grade poem full of sappy, overdone figurative language because it was part of the class lesson that day, just like writers assemble argumentative essays that speak to issues that permeate real life. Such as, what it means that women might lose more rights to their own bodies in the near future, or that there are illegal immigrants that work hard in our country only to be belittled and silenced. Since joining the Minor, I have learned how important it is to use my words to convey arguments and new ways of thinking to my audience in order to display a different perception of issues.

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There are many mediums which can be used to explain the thoughts that float around in my head. I could express myself through music, art, or simply speaking. But writing is the medium where I am most comfortable doing so. I have written independently since I knew how to write a sentence. Does this make me unique? No, plenty of people have this attraction to writing from a young age. What makes me proud now is that I can look back at what I wrote and see the progress that I have made and where I want to go. My greatest motivation to write is this reward of progress that I’m given through time. Visually, I can make out the peaks and valleys of my writing career. The times that I threw all my creativity into unfinished chapter books written in gel pen on printer paper feel like outlets for my angst-ridden middle school years. Then there is the college English class where I tried to tackle the creative nonfiction genre and learned that writing a single, grammatically correct active (never passive!) sentence is much more complex than I previously thought it to be. These experiences make me the writer I am today. Without my history as a writer, I would not have a direction to take my new thoughts and ideas. From here, I go up.

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Being in the Minor has allowed me to see the direction that my writing is taking me, especially since I have been able to reflect on my work throughout this class. Since taking English courses at the University of Michigan, I have learned that I enjoy writing essays that examine social issues from an unconventional perspective. For example, in English 125, I wrote about the movie My Left Foot through the lens of Georgina Kleege’s book Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller, in which I asserted that perhaps the “disabled hero” archetype, which has arguably hurt the disability movement, has actually helped make people with disabilities more accepted in society. This type of approach to my writing allows me to be as creative in my claims as possible, without falling into clichéd arguments that everyone has stumbled upon somewhere online or in their assumptions. This can be seen in my Writing 220 ePortfolio. For my major projects, I compared the lack of opportunities for migrant farmworkers and their children to the lives of modern nomads. Through my writing, I want to flip a problem on its head and have people gain a new perspective on an issue when they are finished reading my words. When I’m old and no longer have to write essays for a grade, but for my own fulfillment like when I was a little girl, I hope I have made this current, younger self proud of everything I have done.