Writing is a creative form of art that I enjoy besides music and the visual arts. I write all the time as a lifelong communication strategy. I have been blogging and writing articles for years, and have read tons of books and used social media, which have provided me an opportunity to share stories about my life and everything I saw happening in the world. I find that social media has been useful for people with disabilities who seek support and opportunities to connect with others and tell stories that motivate them to become active writers.
My mother, who has a degree in journalism, does a good job editing my writing assignments for classes and blog posts that helped me learn to write productively and professionally. In an interview with my friend Trent Tabor, he gave me an answer stating that, “I feel like for one, having taken a journalism class has helped a lot, and secondly, having an Editor in chief who knows other people and treats them with kindness and respect.” He added, “Having a good editor means one who knows everybody and understands them.” Based on the evidence I gathered from the interview, I agreed with him that both an editor and teacher are useful in improving writing skills to publish articles. Tabor and I were officially staff writers this year in the college newspaper, and we had an amazing editor-in-chief and a content strategist who took the time to review and edit all news articles. I have never taken a journalism class before, but I have taken many English classes that offered me sufficient amounts of educational support in learning to read and write properly.
I feel like the three rhetorical features I use in my writing composition, such as ethos, pathos, and logos are my strengths that draw people’s attention to what I’m trying to say about the purpose of each article. Sometimes I’ve had a hard time comprehending parts of the content I read in an academic level which requires use of critical thinking and deep interpretation of what is being written, based on the author’s point of view. Being able to understand metaphors, vocabulary terms, and context clues is a technical challenge I have faced in language development, so I had to spend more time reading until I got an idea from what I have learned. Because I’m deaf, it even takes me a bit longer to organize my writing than most people so it helps to work directly with an editor to make revisions before my work gets published. As a staff writer for the HCC Times, the organization uses WordPress to get news articles up to date so I was often responsible for ensuring that the ones I wrote are worth it for the readers. In high school, my speech language pathologist and I met in her office to go over the work I did in classes that involved writing about different things, so she gave me feedback on what changes were to be made and which parts of my writing pieces should be reworded. According to Tabor, he said in a statement, “I think next year, when I start writing more news articles, I think I’ll just get feedback from the editor in chief.” This quote seems really inspiring to me because I can always have a peer editor and use the feedback to organize my writing. The accommodations I received in terms of speech in writing was one of the most helpful ways to meet my goals in life. For instance, I typically rely on assistance with typing up essays, documents, and rough drafts to stay on my pace. I also use my nose to write on my iPad and computer. In general, I use Microsoft Word and Pages as the main software options designed for writers who are visually impaired. It includes font styles that have to be large enough for me to proofread and watch for spelling mistakes and grammar errors.
Now that I am a skilled writer, with the progress I made over many years of education and improvement, the next step I would take to go forward is to start writing more often and publish as many sources of mediation as possible. Right now, I want to develop a technique that focuses on promoting advocacy through writing by spreading out a combination of ideas about the world and what should be done to improve the lives of myself and others using the knowledge of diverse fields of study like sociology, political science, social work, and psychology.
