During my freshman and sophomore year at my high school, the teachers would create a list of topics for you to decide from and you would have to choose one from the list. The teachers hardly ever allowed us, the students, to choose our own topic. When the topic was finally chosen, then you would have to edit it about three, or more, different times.  So, there was really little work involved.  During my junior year, the teachers no longer gave us lists, or topics, to choose from. Instead we had to come up with our own ideas, which put more work in my hands and challenged my wits. Aside from writing for the teacher, I also had to do writing for AP tests and TAKS tests. AP tests were the major reason I did several essays and practiced incorporating different writing devices in my work. When forming ideas for an essay I take a piece of paper and start jotting down the main ideas of what I want to write about. When I had all my ideas written down, instead of forming the introductory paragraph first and then writing the essay, I wrote the essay and formatted my introductory, or thesis, paragraph to my essay. After that, I would edit it about two or three times. After editing, I was, at last, done with my essay.