Writing, Writing, and more Writing

I would like to think of myself as a writer. I am always writing something be it text message, email, facebook status, journal entry, blog, or homework assignment. One of the ways I like to express what I am thinking is by writing a poem (not always one that rhymes), writing in my journal/scrapbooking, or sketching. I have never really been a fan of five paragraph essays (or essays in general) and therefore try to avoid them if I can. In fact, I even transferred out of a history class once because there were so many papers that we had to write for the class. Now I wish I had stayed in it. As a kid, I used to write fairytales, and in fact, I didn't stop doing that until I was in high school. Writing down ideas and stories from a different place were just another way for me to be somewhere other than where I was (like my reading). I loved having to write short stories in school. It was when we no longer go to have fun with our writing that I started to dislike academic writing--so about seventh grade. Still to this day, I enjoy different types of writing in classes be it poems, journals, stories, etc. I felt like I could be more of myself and let my creativity show this way than when I had to write a five paragraph persuasive essay. I will try to keep my students away from five paragraph essays in my class. They will explore different types of writing in my class. I also feel that students can be more creative when allowed to write a different way. I have really enjoyed writing this blog and think that it is a beneficial way to get down what you are thinking. Students today speak and think differently than even kids of my generation. They speak their texts and emails. I feel that I can give them the opportunity to express themselves in new ways. I remember helping my brother with an essay for an English class and reading through his paper I could clearly see facebook speak. Wouldn't it be fun to have students explore famous peoples' points of view or take sides of an issue using facebook? Or creating a dialogue for an assignment like they were sending texts back and forth? What about journals, reflections, and poems about the students and their learning? This is not to say that I won't teach my students conventional academic writing because that is very important, but I do feel that students will enjoy this type of writing more when they are given opportunity to write in the way they do best in other instances.