Linguistic History

During middle school and high school I remember writing descriptive essays, persuasive essays, personal narratives, poems, and research papers. Also, when I was a young girl I wrote in a journal. It highlighted the best parts of my day such as what I ate for lunch and the fun games played at recess. For the most part I found writing to be fairly easy except for certain promps and/or topics that were unfamiliar or of little interest to me as a student. To be honest, I don't read books on a regular basis. I prefer magazines, newspapers, and online articles. In a high school creative writing class I was asked to construct a children's short story. It was fun to think of a plot, create characters, and draw pictures to make the story complete. I also wrote a variety of poetry in this particular class about the seasons, holidays, and love. With today's technology, the only time I generally write letters is for thank you notes or birthday cards. Most of the time I e-mail or text message friends and family to keep in touch.
While growing up, my parents helped expand my vocabulary by teaching me new words, but did so in an informal setting. Teachers on the other hand spoke and taught more formally by giving homework, quizzes, and tests. The only time I was exposed to a second language was in high school when I took Spanish. I found it difficult to carry on a conversation. I knew a lot of words, but had trouble forming them into complete thoughts and sentences.
I feel that essay and assignment writing is harder than other forms of writing because you must answer a particular promt/and or question that may not interest you in any way. You aren't writing because you want to, you're writing because you have to for a certain class. I find it easier to free write about a topic of interest to you as an individual. I enjoy writing to my peers because I feel that I can easily relate to them about a variety of topics. I also found it was easy to write to a younger audience, such as children's books. However, I would find it difficult to write to an older audience or an audience in which I would be unfamiliar.