Write about one person who has influenced your writing (in positive or negative ways). Be specific about the ways that person has provided influence; provide specific examples, if necessary.
One person who shaped the way I write in a negative way was my English teacher in 5th grade. I honestly don't remember anything about her, but I remember the curriculum I went through. I was part of a homeschool co-op called Paisley Distance Learning, and we used this organization's materials to learn how to write. One thing that stands out in my memory is the long list of synonyms for common words such as "happy," "said," and "ran." I particularly remember having a fondness for the word "fetid."
The result was that for most of middle school I crammed my writing full of all the vocab words I could find. I became fond of thesauruses. I especially avoided using the word "said," becoming the opposite of Stephen King's advice to only use "said" except in rare circumstances.
I only weaned myself off this tendency a couple years into high school, and I still find myself using words that are too complex or just inappropriate for the situation. I do enjoy using less common words when they're more accurate for what I'm trying to say, but there are times when it just isn't necessary, and I think I've come off as pretentious at times because of it.
This wasn't necessarily the teacher's fault, but I think it was an overzealous curriculum. Fifth graders may not be full-fledged writers yet, but they're old enough to be given some nuance and told when simple words can be appropriate. Not introducing that nuance hindered me in my writing journey in a way that I've never fully left behind.
I can definitely relate to this. When I was in middle school, my teachers thought my word choice was often over-simplistic, so I would start changing my words to extreme multisyllabic words to make myself seem like I could do more than just the common "happy", "said", "ran", etc.
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