Language Investigation #2: Rollercoaster of Rules

From primary school to now has been a rollercoaster journey through language. It started as I learned the capital letters and where to put periods and has evolved to complex sentences and in depth writing. I have always enjoyed writing but never really paid much attention to how I was doing it. Looking back I can see different rules I have been taught and how I have used them and have grown as a writer.
I don’t have many writing memories from elementary school. The one thing I do remember is the multiple stories I wrote about my cat. All of them began pretty much the same way: “My cat is black and white. Her name is Thelma Lou. She is fat.” Obviously this is very simple and pretty straight forward. The main rules I know I was careful to use were to capitalize the beginning of each sentence and to put a period at the end of each sentence. Commas really didn’t exist for me yet. However, I remember being told never to start a sentence with “and,” “but” or “or.” I have recently learned that it is actually okay to do this. Everything was simple back then and I could see it in my writing. However, going in to middle school things changed considerably.
Once again, I can’t remember too much from middle school. In language arts I remember learning the format of an essay. You needed to have an introduction, three following paragraphs for three main points, and then ended with a conclusion that summed up everything previously stated. I also remember learning about word choice and remember learning to use a thesaurus. Word choice was very important to me. I really liked to find really good descriptive words that helped my writing stand out. All my teachers were impressed with some of the words I found to use. One of my big memories from middle school is about how to use voice. I never knew what that was even though I had been using voice in my writings for years. I learned this through a science paper believe it or not. I had forgot to write a paper and wrote on at the last minute about the digestive system. It was horrible. I received a low grade on the paper, but the teacher was letting me re-do it for a chance to bump my grade up to passing. This time I sat down diligently and wrote a paper about the journey of a cookie through the digestive system. My use of voice is what really came from this paper. My teachers were amazed at how I took on the persona of a cookie and how real and fun it sounded. They still use my paper as an example.
High school was where I really began to blossom as a writer. I was learning so many new things and these things were relevant and I remember a lot of them. I learned about paragraph structure, sentence phrasing, and punctuation rules, and learned various techniques for writing different genres. There has been one thing however that has remained incredibly inconsistent throughout high school. That thing is the topic or thesis statement. I’ve learned many different rules regarding this. I had one teacher who told me as long as it was in my introduction somewhere that was good. This teacher also said my introduction could be two paragraphs if I wanted. Later on I learned that my introduction must be one paragraph and no longer and that my thesis statement needed to be at end of my intro. I’ve also heard that the thesis goes in the middle, and have been told it must go at the very beginning. At this point I don’t think there are any real rules for this. It’s up to the writer, or in this case, the person grading the paper.
At this point in my life I feel that I don’t truly understand any rules of grammar or language. I’ve been told so many different things so the real rules are just in a scramble with the others. I don’t even think rules are that important for most of my writing. What is important is what my teacher wants. I want the good grade so I will write my paper in the style that my teacher wants rather than how maybe it truly should be. Somewhere along the way rules have gotten lost and pushed aside. Now that this class is about the real rules and those are the things the teacher wants, hopefully I’ll gain a whole new set of skills. I need to keep my mind open to learning and trying new things in my writing to make my writing use the best language possible.