Perhaps it is just me, but I always feel that when I write for school, it is so fake. I say things like "Yet another reason that the rise of Christianity prompted the decent of Rome is that it embraced all types of people. " It's not that I don't like to write, because I love to, it's that school stifles my creativity. At my school, we must write in a Steps Essay form. When I asked if I could experiment and use a different base for my paper, I was told that I would be to complicated for me. This upset me slightly. I have been writing since I was really little and going outside the box would only improve my writing. So, why then can't we write a little differently? I don't mean writing a narrative when they ask for an essay, I mean that I wouldn't block out every sentence of every paragraph. I would write as it came naturally, letting words flow onto the paper. But no, my school is still in the dark ages about writing.
Do you have some teachers that are very strict about how you write? Have you been lucky enough to have a teacher that encourages writing of all types? Is school really helping us become better writers?
Ps. Before I entered high school, my writing teachers were amazing. They encouraged us to try new things, and taught all forms of writing. (One of them was recently named Teacher of the Year for my state) I've only encountered this "my way is the best way to write" in high school, so I can't say that all school writing is bad.
