Writing comes in plethora of forms – letters, newspaper articles, essays, poetry, short stories, novels – each one requiring just as much skill, effort and patience as the next.
While every writing mode is unique, certain types of writing are deemphasized and devalued as students progress through American academia.
What does this mean for the writing forms that are downplayed after high school and college? They’re simply forgotten about and relegated to the back of many adults’ memories.
Let’s start at the beginning.
From the early years of grade school, students learn about the fundamentals of writing. Sentence structure, grammar, word choice and various other tools are impressed upon them. At first, many struggle to grasp these concepts. However, there comes a point for most students when the homework assignments and quizzes produce a fully functional writer.
It’s during this bombardment of paperwork that many people reach the peak of their relationship with two types of writing – poetry and short stories. These two writing modes are frequently used by teachers throughout high school. Additionally, most colleges require students, even if they are majoring in physics or marine biology, to take at least one general English course that will include some mention of poetry or short stories.
But what about after you finish your ENG 101 course? What happens to the poetry and short stories? For many people, they’re gone. They’ve become obsolete. The next time that 99 percent of physics and marine bio majors will see poetry is in 20 years when their son starts third grade.
Almost every situation has its anomalies, and this situation is no exception. Even if your day job involves taking samples or solving equations, you may still enjoy writing the occasional poem or short story. If you’re in this group and want your writing seen by more than just your mom and your dog, Fluffy, you have the option of submitting it to a literary magazine. Literary magazines come in both print and online and are dedicated to publishing all forms of writing – even the ones you thought you’d never see again.
