Narrative vs. Essay Work

I can’t stand writing essays. Or rather they just take the most amount of time for me to write compared to completing other assignments in different classes that are more study and problem-based like chemistry or biology. A part of that is probably how I write papers. I don’t quite use the “5 steps” method that we discussed on Wednesday; however, I have a very formulaic way of writing that generally involves me outlining and writing simultaneously. The problem with this is that I constantly re-write sentences because I’m never quite sure about what I’ve put on the page, and I generally get too concerned with grammar and word choice too early in whatever paper I’m writing. When we were assigned the literacy narrative assignment due next Wednesday, I was not very motivated to complete it. I had just finished a paper in my American Healthcare Systems class that involved me reading a 40-page article and researching healthcare issues, so I was not quite ready to jump back into another writing assignment. However, once the literacy narrative was explained a little further, I realized that this might be a more refreshing style of writing after all. I started working on the first draft yesterday and completed it after a few hours, and once I finished I realized that I take a much different approach to a more narrative style than essay writing. When I wrote the narrative, I wrote much more consistently than what I do for an essay, almost like the “12 minute write” activity we did on Friday. Sure, I still had the habit of constantly rewriting sentences and being overly concerned with grammar, but I felt that this paper relied more heavily on creativity than the argument format generally seen in essays and other papers I would have to write. The literacy narrative made many of my other essays for other classes resemble “The Ecstasy of Influence” in a sense that when I wrote them, I would spend so much time trying to find and use evidence correctly that my own voice in the paper would be somewhat of an afterthought. It would always be evidence, explanation, evidence, explanation and so on. However, because this paper was a narrative, I also found myself pausing when I wrote because I didn’t quite know where to go next. The time that I would have spent either re-reading a source was replaced with me contemplating what moment I try to introduce into the narrative next. I feel like my first draft definitely needs work since I haven’t written in this way in a long time, but I also think that a peer review would be especially helpful for that same reason. Formal essays have such a standardized flow that it’s easy to pinpoint where you might be going wrong, yet with a literacy narrative, I really feel like another perspective might be helpful in making a solid final product from this assignment. I’m hoping that with some good criticism, I can improve my writing in a style that I have not used in quite some time.