Blog #6: Blockers

I'll admit, I only understood about half of Mike Rose's essay. The technical details of his clinical frame flew over my head, but what I did understand was the struggle he described his students underwent because of writer's block. I felt sympathy with the students who suffered severe forms of writer's block because like them I used to have a strict code of writing. In high school and early in my college career, like Sylvia, I believed that I had to craft the best introduction in order for the rest of my essay to succeed. I don't exactly know why I decided to break this habit because nowadays I simply write to quotes and my introduction is usually the last piece of my writing projects. I think the change occurred in my last two years of undergraduate college when a professor pointed out that my paragraphs were too long and I needed to break them up into smaller more focused paragraphs. This comment completely shook and shifted my writing paradigm. I didn't know what the professor meant, nor did I have an intimation of how to accomplish the task set before me. I think, at the time, I was still beholden to the five paragraph essay. I felt that I needed to fit my analysis and argument into this neat structure. However, as my ideas became more complex, my paragraphs became longer. Breaking the mold was hard, but I think that one comment broke the preset rules I had stored in my mind, so that I became much more flexible in my writing process. I still like the five paragraph essay, I still use it, but I am willing to abandon it should the project abandon it.