chapter 4: writing a personal essay

Part 2: Inquiry Projects

Chapter ThreeWriting a Personal Essay

PowerPoint by Michelle Payne, PhDBoise State University

The Curious WriterFourth Edition

by Bruce Ballenger

Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chapter Three Writing a Personal Essay

In this chapter, you will learn how to


WRITING ABOUT EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATIONS

The best topics ask to be written about because they make you wonder Why did

I do that? What does that mean? Why did that happen? How did I really feel?

What do I really think?Image from Microsoft Clip Art


MOTIVES FOR WRITING A PERSONAL ESSAY

“The personal essay tradition inspired by Montaigne is probably unlike what you are familiar with from school. The school essay is often formulaic—a five-paragraph theme or thesis-example paper—while the personal essay is an open-ended form that allows for uncertainty and inconclusiveness. It is more about the process of coming to know than presenting what you know.”


Use personal experiences and observations to drive inquiry.Goal 1

The personal essay attempts to find out rather than to prove.

• Ideal if– You want to explore ideas– You wonder about relationships between your

subject and yourself• Pitfalls:

– Can be too subjective, become narcissistic– Doesn’t answer so what? for the reader


THE PERSONAL ESSAY AND ACADEMIC WRITING

“What we choose to write about, the questions that interest us, and our particular ways of seeing are always at work, even in academic pros … Whenever anyone—scientist or humanist—uses language to communicate discoveries, they enter a social marketplace where words have meanings that are negotiated with others. For writers—any kind of writers—language is a social currency.”


Apply the exploratory thinking of personal essays to academic writing.

How does writing a personal essay relate to writing an academic one?• Emphasizes exploration as a method of inquiry:

– Suspending judgment– Tolerating ambiguity– Using questions to challenge easy assumptions

• Emphasizes the process of coming to understand something

Goal 2


• Movement between critical and creative thinking.

• Much like inductive reasoning typical of scientific thinking.

Emphasizes the kind of thinking typical of academic discourse.


THE WRITING PROCESS


Inquiry Project: Writing a Personal Essay


Identify the characteristics of personal essays in different forms.Goal 3

Inquiry Questions

What does it mean to me?

What do I understand about this now that I didn’t

then?

Motives

Self discovery

Uses first-person (“I)—the writer’s relationship to

his/her subject is central and shapes meaning.


Features of the Form

• Memory• Observation

• Specific, sensory details • Narrative, not necessarily

chronological• Reflection / Exposition• Implied thesis

• Ordinary things• Everyday life• Writer making sense of

her world

• What does this mean to me?

• What do I understand now that I didn’t then?

• Self-discovery

Purpose Subject

SourcesForm


Type Questions Genre

Question of Fact or Definition

What is it? What is known about it?

Beginning of inquiry

Question of Value Which is better/worse? Is it good/bad

Review, Argument, Research Essay

Hypothesis Question Might this be true? Research Essay, Personal Essay

Policy Question What should be done? Argument, Proposal

Interpretation Question What does it mean? Literary Essay, Personal Essay, Ethnography, Profile

Relationship Question Does ___ cause ___? Is ___similar or dissimilar to ____?

Research Essay, Literary Essay, Ethnography

Types of Questions Types of Genres


WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE ABOUT?

“Whatever you write about, what matters most is that you’ve chosen the topic because you aren’t quite sure what you want to think about it. Write about what confuses you, what puzzles you, or what raises itchy questions.”


Use invention strategies to discover and develop a personal essay topic.

Opening up (generating):• What do I remember or see that I’d like to think

about?

Narrowing down (judging):• Which of these raise the most interesting

questions to explore?

Trying out (generating, then judging):• What do I understand now about this topic that

I didn’t before?

Goal 4


Opening Up: Generating Ideas

• Journal prompts– Listing– Fastwriting– Visual prompts– Research prompts

Am I uncertain about what this might mean?

Is this topic more complicated than it

seemed at first?

Might I understand these events differently now than I did then?


Example: Clustering


What’s Promising Material and What Isn’t?

• Abundance. What subject generated the most writing? Do you sense that there is much more to write about?

• Surprise. Did you see or say something you didn’t expect about a topic?

• Confusion. What subject raises questions you’re not sure you can answer easily?

Narrowing Down: Judging


Questions about Purpose and Audience

• Key point: – Audience and purpose are

important, but not if they keep you from writing.

• Connecting purpose and audience:– What have you discovered about

your inquiry question, your experiences and observations, that speak to others—a theme that you could express in a “we statement”?

“Being too vigilant about what readers think can discourage you from welcoming the messy accidents that can make for helpful discoveries.”


Trying Out: Generating, Then Judging

Then-Narrator and Now-Narrator• What do you understand

now about this topic that you didn’t fully understand when you began writing about it? Start some writing with this phrase:

“As I look back on this now, I realize that . . . ”

• What seems to be the most important thing you’re trying to say so far?

• How has your thinking changed about your topic? Finish this seed sentence as many times as you can in your notebook:

“Once I thought _______, and now I think _______.”


Sketch: What Is It?Choose your most promising material, and tell the story. • If drawn from memories:

– Incorporate both what happened then and what you make of it now.

• If drawn from observations:– Make sure they are detailed, anchored to

particular times and places, and in some way significant.

• You may or may not answer the “So what?” question—see what happens.

Let the writing

help you figure out what you

think.


Sketch: What Should You Try to Do?

• Have a tentative title.• Keep it relatively short.• Write it fast.• Don’t muscle it to conform to a preconceived

idea.• Write to be read, with an audience in mind.• Make it specific instead of general.


The Process So Far…

Narrowing Trying Out

Abundance

Surprise

Confusion

Brain-stormingClusteringPrompts Sketch

Generating

• What questions does this material raise for you?

• What might it mean? • Why would readers care about this?

Now what?Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

DRAFTING

“The key to developing your draft is to arrive at a fuller understanding of what your purpose is in telling your own stories and then rebuild your essay around that insight from the beginning.”


From Sketch to DraftConsider purpose and audience again:

• What might this essay be saying, not only about me, but more generally about people who find themselves in similar situations?

• What questions does it raise that might be interesting, not only to me, but also to others who may not know me?

Keep in mind what you’ve learned from your writing so far:

• What is the most important question behind your exploration of the topic?

• What do you understand now that you didn’t understand fully when you started writing about it?

• How can you show and explain how you came to this understanding?

• Have you already written a strong first line for the draft? Can you find it somewhere in all your journal writing?


Apply revision strategies that are effective for shaping narratives.Goal 5

Group workshop on drafts:

Purpose

What would you say this essay is about?

Do you have a clear sense of why I’m writing about this topic?


Purpose of Revision: Shaping

Shaping

• Purpose

• Meaning

What the essay is about

• Organization

• Information


Strategies for Revision

What to cut/add

•What info is no longer relevant?•What info is missing?Questi

on of time

•Info from past or present?•How does time organize essay?Rese

arch

•Background•Facts•Other writers


Image from Microsoft Clip Art

Revision: Typical Problems

• The reader isn’t sure from the beginning where the essay is going.

• There’s too much telling/explaining. Focus on the narrative backbone of the essay.

• The larger significance isn’t clear. Have you said what you need to say about how, though it’s your experience, the meaning you discover might apply to others as well?


Unclear Purpose

•Not sure what the essay is about? Fails to answer the So what question?

Unclear thesis, theme or main idea

•Not sure what you’re trying to say?

Lack of information or development

•Needs more details? More showing, less telling?

Disorganized

•Doesn’t move logically or smoothly from paragraph to paragraph?

Unclear or awkward at the level of sentences

and paragraphs

•Seems choppy or hard to follow at the level of sentences or paragraphs?Chapter 13:

Revision Strategies

1 to 4

Chapter 13: Revision

Strategies 5 to 10


Strategies 11 to 14


Strategies 15 to 18


Strategies 20 to 26

Guide to Revision Strategies


chapter 4: writing a personal essay

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literary essay

generating