English 101: Shaping Experience Through Language: Reading and Writing as Shaping Experience

The Personal Essay

Complete Draft Due Wednesday, September 11th

Final Draft Due Monday, September 16th

"It was like dying, this watching the world recede into deeper and deeper blues while the snow piled; silence swelled and extended, distance dissolved. . . The snow on the yard was blue as ink, faintly luminous; the sky violet."

                                                          -Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Definition: By drawing upon description and narration, the personal essay attempts to define the self through life events.  The personal essay is a story, a narrative of personal experiences, moments in your life through which you explore who you are.

Purpose: The above quote from Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek works through description, not narration.  As readers, we sense that she is seeing something significant in the environment around her.  English as a discipline or subject requires a different form of thinking, thinking through which significance is created from the slightest, seemingly insignificant detail.  Since much of the significance and meaning in our lives grow out of stories and stories grow out of detail, you will begin by describing an image (a visual photograph), allowing this image to form the basis of your personal essay.

Unless you go on to major in the field of English, you will probably never write a personal essay ever again.  The description and narration of events are important to all disciplines, even to activities such as timed essay questions.  Because description and narration are two of the most difficult modes for students to write within, the personal essay will allow you to consciously work upon these forms of writing in the hopes that they will more easily transfer not only to the more complex forms of writing we will explore but also in writing outside this class.

Remember that this is a course in seeing.  You will want to find an event of significance in your life that you do not quite understand or is still confusing to you.  By writing this essay, it is hoped that you come to a better understanding of this event, thus helping you see and understand yourself and the experience in new ways. 

Directions: Begin by freewriting in order to discover a number of events that might be suitable for this essay.  Once you find an experience that might work, you should do additional freewrites in order to explore and examine the event.  Then, narrow your idea or concept down to a specific image (not a story-no events) and develop this image into public writing for Wednesday.  Ultimately, this image is what you will be developing into a narrative as we progress.

You will be very much a part of this essay, and the reader should be able to see who you are based on your experiences.  Be aware that you should not narrate several years of you life.  This essay asks you to focus on images and moments.  This is the beginning of your ability to write five pages based on five minutes of your life rather than one page based on five years of your life.

Also, pay close attention to the David Updike, Rita Ayers, and Annie Dillard essays we study in class.  They are personal essays doing just what this assignment asks for.  Study how they write about their experiences and play with the choices we analyze in your own essays.

Grading Criteria: Your thesis for this essay should be implied, meaning that you do not state what the essay is about in a short sentence.  Rather, what you learned about yourself will make itself known through your narrative.  Other criteria include the effective use of description, narration, and dialogue.  This essay should be carefully edited and proofread, paying close attention to the correction of formal errors.  At this point, this criterion is vague; however, it will be defined further as we proceed.

Length: 4-5 pages (1,000-1,500 words)

Format: Typed; Double-Spaced; Times New Roman; 12-Point Font

For the Writing Workshop (9/11), please bring two copies of your essay to class.

"We walked along.  Forward with the left leg, plant the foot, lock the knee, arch the ankle.  Push the leg into the paddy, stiffen the spine.  Let the war rest there atop the left leg: the rucksack, the radio, the hand grenades, the magazines of gold ammo, the rifle, the steel helmet, the jingle of dogtags, the body's own fat and water and meat. . ."

                                                                                           --Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone

Download an RTF version of Personal Essay Baird