Portfolio Assignment 1
Insightful. Witty. Completed on time. These are just some of the words and phrases that haven’t been used to describe my writing. But there’s so much more (or is it less?)
I guess my literary quest began with my mother, who buys the underwear necessary for my going to school each day. My parents’ involvement in my education stops there. This forced/forces me to discover my own truths through writing. What I discovered is that I like to joke around and generally waste everybody’s time.
I developed my critical voice in ninth grade. I don’t know why or how. It just happened. I became cognizant of the world, and I laughed at what I saw. I became my own caped crusader. I’m scarcely interested in conforming to strict blue book formats and word counts and city zoning laws. Sorry.
In the past few years I’ve worked on making my writing funny in and of itself. I try to eliminate pop culture, clichés, inside jokes, puns, and the like from my work. I find these are the bastions of the weak comedic writer. I attempt to fashion myself after Dave Barry.
I write by the seat of my pants. I might travel off topic, but I think that’s good. I let my fingers do the talking. If they start to talk too much, I just take my happy medicine. I want my writing to become more cohesive. I want to stay on task and wait in line and be a good boy, but I’m afraid that if I do those things my work will become boring. I’m very afraid of being boring.
I find that the teachers who appreciate my writing most are those that can understand where both my writing and I are coming from. Teachers that understand my sense of humor generally like my stuff. I assume that you’re cool about stuff like this, but you know what happens when I assume. That’s right: I start to fail classes.
My name is Marc Friedenberg and I am your student.