I only had one experience in high school that forced me to alter my very linear thought process. This experience occurred in my senior year when I took Writing Seminar. And while I can say my experience in Writing Seminar altered my perception of what writing was I have to admit that the style of writing and thinking the majority of my high school teachers taught has stuck with me throughout my collegiate experience. I have found this especially true this semester because I have started taking classes such as this and I am forced to acknowledge that my high school did not prepare me for the different styles of writing expected of a Lafayette English student. The two English classes I am currently taking have both made it clear that my high school failed to instill in me the value of creativity. During my four years at St. Albans only one class prompted me to even consider a different approach to writing. This class was Writing Seminar.
Writing seminar was taught, at the time,by Dr. Paul Piazza. My senior year was his 40th year of teaching and he came to class every day with a level of charisma and enthusiasm I had yet to see from a teacher. Dr. Piazza opened my eyes. He altered every perception I had of what writing was or could be. This class prepared me for college more than any other single experience in my life up to that point. It was not that he discredited the formula my school had worked so hard to teach every student. Instead he showed us the ways in which this formula could be tweaked to create the strongest piece of writing. The strangest thing about Writing Seminar was that at the time I felt as if I was being taught from scratch how to write an essay. It is only in looking back on this experience that I realize before this class I never really knew how to write. The alteration in my writing formula reminded me of a speech by Kurt Vonnegut who takes a look at the classic form of stories in a satirical manner.
Dr. Piazza, along the same lines as Vonnegut, showed us the typical form of stories and then prompted us to alter them beyond recognition. He pushed my classmates and I to break the mold of not only the story, but of writing in general.