CUNY Writing Fellows- Anna Obrastzova

I was born and grew up in Moscow, Russia. For my senior year of high school I received the Freedom Support Act fellowship to study for a year in the United States, and I spent a very cold and snowy winter in Wisconsin. I became more comfortable in my English during that year, and applied to a small liberal arts college in Illinois . This close academic community allowed me to interact with and learn from many very different individuals, and probably the most influential one was my writing mentor.

When I started writing my first academic essays in college I was often hurt to see many negative comments from my professors and it was then that I realized I needed help that was more than a proofreading roommate could provide. My writing mentor helped me recognize the importance of prewriting and rewriting, the advantage of clarity and organization of my thoughts on paper, and gave me confidence to practice these skills. With time I began to develop an "internal editor", an inner voice that asked questions that I often discussed with my mentor: Was there a clearer way to write a thesis statement? Did my arguments flow? Did I answer the questions asked? These imaginary conversations with my mentor helped me refine my thoughts, and when my thoughts were clear, I could write clear essays. This was my mentor's most valuable gift to me: the ability to ask questions to help me think critically about how I think - in writing. I often felt indignant about how much effort I must invest to write well, but I understood that good writing is a skill that can be improved with practice and editorial mindset.

Although I learned to recognize what good writing is, and what I must do to achieve results I am proud of, my writing process continues to challenge me, to evolve with each new assignment. As a doctoral student in the Neuropsychology program at the Graduate Center and Queens College, I am fortunate to practice my writing in areas that interest me professionally, and I strive to apply and advance my writing skills as a learning tool as I progress in my dissertation work. When I found myself on the other end of academic writing, as a Graduate Teaching Fellow teaching writing-intensive psychology class at Queens College, reading my students' papers, I was forced to re-examine and redefine for myself the requirements of clear written communication. In my students' paper I saw my own writing blunders of college years, the same disorganization and under-developed paragraphs that can cripple and overshadow even the most brilliant arguments. Fortunately, I remember all too well the challenge and the self discipline required to become a responsible and conscientious writer, and I tried to convey the power of writing and editing to students in my class.

As a CUNY Writing Fellow, my goal is to help students become independent writers who are able to express their opinions on a variety of subjects, to overcome their reluctance to edit their work for clarity, to battle the notion that good writers are just born that way. I feel privileged to have had a dedicated mentor's relentless faith in the writing process, and driven to pass on the ability to develop, with practice, a ruthless internal editor that can streamline a distracting mess of words into powerful, well-articulated ideas.