I have had a lot of time to think about this question- why I write. With all of the writing that I do, you would think that I would know why I do it. I was first asked this question in an Art of the Essay course that I took during my sophomore year, so when we were prompted with this question again, I thought that I would have an easy time of answering it. I was wrong. In my first draft of the Why I Write essay, my ideas were very scattered and the topic of the essay seemed unclear. Each paragraph presented a different reason for why I write from the influence of my Kindergarten class, to a childhood diary, to a method of communication, to the joy of examining past experiences, and the chance to explore questions. However, there was no universal, connecting theme between the different reasons that I loved writing. When I began my next draft, I knew that I needed to establish a more focused thesis by finding a way that all of these ideas could connect. I decided to write about how I was always writing for other people. My essay took on a resentful tone in the second draft since I seemed to be very upset with the way that the school had trained me. I had some organization problems that needed to be adjusted in my final revision as well, but after the structure made more sense and the ideas connected, I think I was able to come to a surprising resolution- that writing is method of communicating and to communicate effectively you must be taught the basics.