Anxieties/Concerns

As a future teacher of writing, I am mostly fostering sentiments of excitement and curiosity rather than those of concern (for the most part). I always enjoyed my writing classes, particularly creative writing classes- far more than any other classes I took. My writing classes seemed to be a place where I could feel confident in my academic abilities rather than frustrated (unlike certain math or science centered classrooms down the hall). For me, it was always a positive experience. However, I do remember having peers in my classes that were not experiencing the same thrills that I was in class. They didn't want to be there learning about poetry as much as I didn't want to be in geometry learning about SOH-CAH-TOA. My concern as a future teaching of writing is that I wont be able to reach those students who don't share the same excitement that I have about writing. I am concerned that despite my own eagerness and interest, the subject matter to those students will never seem to extend beyond boring grammatical lessons where they feel they learn nothing other than that they've been using commas in the wrong part of the sentence for the last 14 years. I want to be an exciting teacher who can open doors for students and make them successful writers who actually enjoy writing!
I do consider myself a writer. I've always written poetry and short stories in my free time or whenever the mood arises (I wasn't exactly picked first for kick-ball teams as a kid) and since coming to Western I feel that I've been able to hone my craft and extend my interest and skill to more technical areas of writing, which had always been my biggest writing struggle in high school.
One story I have about a good writing experience comes from last spring's semester here at Western. For some reason I felt more driven about my writing than I have in a while- I was not only writing a lot, but I was sharing my writing and submitting it places as well. I wrote an essay in December that got accepted to the English Symposium in April. I got to read it to a panel, which I will admit [although not having been my motivation for the submission,] happened to make me feel slightly cool. I also had a poem published in The Laureate, Western's Lit Magazine, which had been a personal goal of mine for a long time. That was much more exciting to me than the Symposium.