Reading a Personal Essay

You've probably written many personal narratives over the course of your schooling, but this may be your first personal essay. Instead of focusing on one brief event in your life, you will focus on a series of events over a longer period. As a result, you'll need to be selective about what events you report, and you'll need to tie them together so that they create a clear narrative arc. You can get a sense of how to do so by reading another student's personal essay.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following personal essay, in which Carson reflects on a winter of discontent and the surprising creative outlet that he discovered. Note how he zooms in to specific events with description and dialogue before zooming out with transition sentences to show the progress of time. Click on the side notes to see the different features of this personal essay.

Warm-Up for Personal Essays

What is your very first memory? Was it splashing in a bathtub with little plastic boats, or sharing a cookie with the kid who lived next door, or seeing a reindeer in a holiday parade? People say that your very first memory says a lot about who you are. Why? Because the experience meant something to you at the time and still means something to you now—since you've held onto it all these years.

In fact, the reason we can't remember our earliest years is that we hadn't yet begun to develop what psychologists call autobiographical memory. You probably learned to walk when you were very young but have no memory of it. That's because you didn't start to fashion a mental narrative of your life until you were about three years old. At that point, you started remembering experiences because they helped to explain who you are. Your very sense of self is tied to the memories you have and the stories you tell about them.

You can explore an especially important period in your life by writing a personal essay.

What Is a Personal Essay?

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A personal essay is a narrative about an important time in your life, showing how it shaped who you are. Instead of focusing on just one event, a personal essay relates a number of events over an extended time frame, weaving them together into a "story of you." It won't be enough just to put details in chronological order—first this happened . . . then that happened . . . and afterward this other thing. . . . Instead, you need to show the significance of each event and build them into a narrative arc. You'll learn how in the coming lessons. First, though, you can warm up by imagining you have a time machine.

Thinking About Your Past

In the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, chronic overachiever Hermione Granger uses a "time-turner" to jump back in time and attend a second class while her first self was busy studying in a different class. Now imagine that you have your own time-turner—but you won't be using it to attend classes.

Also, your time-turner works a bit differently. It takes you back to relive three months of your life. You don't watch yourself from the outside. You experience everything again, only this time with your memories of the future riding along. What time period would you choose? Why?

You can use a cluster to explore possible times. Think of "seasons of your life" (approximately three months) and write down at least three such time periods. Then explore each season by adding images, thoughts, actions, and sensations. Use this student cluster as inspiration:

Revising to Show Instead of Tell

Study the two passages that follow. The “before” passage only explains the action, telling about it. The “after” passage uses action, dialogue, personal feelings, and details to develop the action, showing it. The second passage is much more interesting to read.

BEFORE (only explains the action)

AFTER (develops the action with dialogue and personal feelings)

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

The first few sentences in your narrative should grab the reader’s attention. They are called the lead. The following activity will help you write an effective lead.

• Start in the middle of the action.

  Suddenly, I heard a crash downstairs and the sound of breaking glass. “Hey, who’s down there?” I yelled.

• Have the characters talk.

  My brother’s lips were so swollen, it sounded like he said, “Mine guess who fur hiss!”

  “What?” I said.

  He glared at me and said louder, “I’ll get you for this!”

• Begin with a surprising statement or fact.

  When I was nine, I started my dad’s car and drove onto the street. I thought I was going to New Jersey.

• Give some important background information.

  It was a beautiful August morning. The sun was brightly shining on my sunglasses while my mother drove the U-haul truck to a warehouse in Santa Ana, California. As my mother drove down the streets of Santa Ana, I looked out the window and began to realize that the mixture of people was no longer a mixture; there was only white.

Prewriting to Select a Topic

Prewriting to Gather Details

Before you can share a story, you need to remember all the important things that happened. Asking and answering the 5 W’s and H questions can activate your memory and help you record important details about your experience.

• Who was involved in the experience?
• What exactly happened? (the actions or events)
• Where did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• Why did it happen? (the background)
• How did you change because of the experience?

Reading Personal Narratives

Before you share a story about a time when you learned a valuable lesson, you'll want to see how other students explored their topics. Read the sample paragraph and narrative essay in this lesson and answer the questions about them. Think about how the writer puts ideas together and how you might do so in your own narrative.

Reading a Narrative Paragraph

A narrative paragraph briefly shares a story about something that happened in the writer's life. It includes three parts: The topic sentence introduces the story. The body sentences describe what happened in time order. The ending sentence tells why the experience was important, possibly by stating a lesson learned.

Sample Narrative Paragraph

Warm-Up for Personal Narratives

When we tell stories about things that happen to us, we share what makes us unique. You can connect with others by writing a personal narrative.

What Is a Personal Narrative?

Editing Dialogue for Quotation Marks

Dialogue uses quotation marks. These special marks go before and after the exact words of the speaker.

Periods and commas that follow the speaker’s words always go inside the quotation marks.

Question marks and exclamation marks go inside the quotation marks when they punctuation the dialogue.

Revising to Add Sensory Details

To help your story come alive, you can add details about what you saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched. These are called sensory details.

Sensory details help you show readers what is happening, rather than just telling them. You can collect these details in a sensory chart.