Just a Chance

“Many of the things that seem impossible now will become realities tomorrow.

” – Walt Disney This quote has been significant all through my writing workshop class this year. To me, this quote means that at one time you may think that a goal you want to achieve is out of reach and impossible. However, those goals and dreams could easily “become realities tomorrow”. This quote has a lot of meaning and can easily connect to my experiences in writing workshop this year. In writing workshop, I have had moments throughout the year where I felt as though I would not be able to accomplish a writing piece or succeed in doing so.

The “goals” that I had were getting good grades on all of my major writing assignments during the year. At the time, that goal seemed impossible, as I may have been confused and stressed. Fortunately, in the end, I was able to accomplish those goals, and I became a better, stronger writer because of it. It all started with our first major writing assignment—Why I Write. In this piece, we had to describe why we wrote in elementary school, why we write now being a teenager, and why we would write as we got older. Being that it was my first major writing project as an eighth grader, I started off overwhelmed and thinking that I was never going to finish and succeed in time for the due date.

However, I continued to try and pretty soon that “goal” became a reality. The writing assignments then continued with the next major assignment—the ethics paper, entitled Take a Stand. In this assignment we had to choose a current event, outside of the United States, and write a report about it, using our knowledge of ethics. This project, again, had its moments of thinking that my goals were unrealistic. However, once again, it proved to all work out in the end and I was able to achieve the goals that I had set in the beginning of the assignment. Following the ethics project, was the Frederick Douglass unit.

That unit was similar to the Take a Stand project, in that it had me find background information and prior knowledge. For me, this unit required a lot of research and planning to ensure that my project accurately depicted the best of my ability. Despite the fact that it required a lot of time, I was able to realize that if I just worked hard and as best as I could, I would be able to accomplish the goal of doing well on it. After the Frederick Douglass unit project, we had our next major writing assignment on a banned book that we read. I read the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and felt strongly that this book should be censored from middle school libraries.

I had trouble, however, trying to find reasons and evidence to support my reasoning and I struggled to produce a persuasive project going along with my position. However, just like the previous projects, I was able to overcome my challenges and succeed in the end. Finally, after we finished our banned book project and unit, we moved on to the Change in Time writing assignment. By far, this project was the most challenging for me and required the most creativity and originality. I had many moments where I thought that I would never be able to finish this writing piece successfully.

In the end, as all of the other projects before that had turned out, I was able to accomplish the assignment and did the best I could. In conclusion, this Walt Disney quote significantly describes my journey as a writer this year. It shows that although goals or dreams you have may seem impossible at certain times, if you keep working towards them, they can eventually come true. Throughout writing workshop this year, I have been challenged and have had times when I really struggled with assignments, but was able to overcome those challenges. And, in the end, became a better writer because of it. I was now able to use much more advanced vocabulary that I had learned as well as new techniques to enhance my writing even more.

These challenges that I had encountered, such as adding a specific number of vocabulary words to each piece, may have been difficult for me at the time but I have become a better writer because of these challenges. I know that I am going to continue to work towards improving my writing skills even more, and I can take all of the things that I have learned in writing workshop as an eighth grader and use them to improve my writing even more than I have this year.