How to survive the personal essay
By Natalie Brennan
Vermont Student Assistance Corporation
The personal essay is a perennial challenge for students and teachers, whether intended for an eighth-grade portfolio or the college application essay. It's a challenge for admissions officers, too.
I once worked at a college admissions office; I read hundreds of application essays. Many told me little about the applicants but a lot about the applicants' writing skills. I quickly learned that to most students the essay is a necessary evil in the process of attaining college acceptance. That left me with this question: How would these students survive and excel once in college, where writing is the primary means of communicating learning?
At Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, I listen to a lot of high school students, and I’ve learned the reason for their “dis-ease” with the personal essay. The essay is unfamiliar and uncomfortable, Myers McGinty tells us, because “you have to think for yourself about yourself. The separated voice of objective reflection is neither the daily practice nor the academic habit of high school students.”
Students are paralyzed by the essay requirement, the topics and the obstacle of getting started.
In VSAC workshops, I provide students with the space, time and strategies to help them overcome the hurdles of getting started with writing and the subsequent challenge of "starting the essay," or the opening line.
Try out this workshop; it should help students write better essays.
For teachers
Ideally, this writers' workshop should take place in a block class (approximately 85 minutes) with additional homework and in-class time devoted to individual writing and peer editing.
Required materials: two index cards for each student, preferably two different sizes (3-by-5 inch, 5-by-7 inch) and two different colors.
An index card provides a less threatening medium than a stark blank page; the size sets reasonable and welcome limits for the amount of writing possible.
Discuss with students the real topic of the personal essay: Them.
Select and display a question or prompt appropriate for your students. College essay questions are easily obtained via college Web sites and the resources listed on this page; many are appropriate for use with students of all ages.
Either of these sample essay prompts provide ample opportunity for personal reflection:
"A stone, a leaf, an unfound door." -- "Look Homeward Angel," Thomas Wolfe
Write about three objects that would give the admissions selection committee insight into who you are." - Cornell University
For students
1. Using words and/or pictures, list objects that give insight into who you are; reflect on the roles you play in your life and the objects or items associated with you and those roles.
2. Select from your list one object that you will discuss with another student.
3. Work in pairs, and tell your partner a story about your item. Describe in detail: Why/how does the item represent you or issue concern you? Tell stories about its significance, history, size, shape, location. Use myths, memories, sight, sound, smell, taste. Use "who, what, where, when, why, and how." Each partner must take legible notes on the large index card.
4.Read notes to each other, then give the notes you took to your partner. (This allows students to process their ideas by speaking and by listening, before having to put them on the page. This benefits all students, especially reluctant writers, who realize they do indeed have “something to write about:” The story they just told!)
5. Work independently and write a draft of your essay; expand upon your original story and ideas recorded by your partner on your note card. (Note: Time allowed for writing the first draft depends upon class/workshop time, expectations of continuing for homework and/or additional class time.)
Discuss audience (the typical college admissions officer who reads hundreds of these a week) and the purpose of the "hook" -- the opening line to draw the reader in and make him/her want to continue reading, but not reveal the entire topic of the essay right away.
6. Play "Read or Reject." Students should assume the roles of admissions officers and vote to "Read or Reject" potential essays based on first lines presented on overhead or handout. No discussion, just "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."
Sources for such sample opening lines: student work, literary journals, magazine essays, current classroom reading, Teen Ink magazine, "On Writing the College Application Essay" and other resources listed at left.
7. Next, rewrite possible opening lines for your own "first draft," writing as many as you can on the small index card provided (at least one of these opening lines will be shared with group).
8. "First Line Last": Going around the room and without editorial comments, each student reads aloud one opening line for his or her personal essay in progress.
