Think about it…

How do specific events or experiences affect a person?

What makes an event important or significant?

How can writing about these experiences help a person?

“Memory always betrays me. That’s why I write –

to preserve memory.”Isabel Allende

“The House of Small Cubes”

A Life MapThink of five events or episodes in your life that you consider important or significant.Note: The events should be ones that you remember.

A Life MapOn a one-half crosswise sheet of paper (Size 2), list the five events or episodes in chronological order.

A Life MapLabel each event and briefly describe it, i.e., what happened, who were involved, how did the event affect you or make you feel.

A Life Map

A Life Map

Imagine…

You are working on your application to your dream college or university.

One of the requirements is a 500- to 700-word personal essay where you discuss an event or experience in childhood or adolescence that proved instrumental in shaping or defining your character, beliefs, etc.

University professors who form the Admissions Committee will read your essay, and your objective is to convince them that you should be accepted into the university.

It will be evaluated using the 6+1 Writing Traits Rubric: IdeasOrganizationVoiceWord ChoiceSentence FluencyConventionsPresentation

The Personal Essay

Revolves around a personal experience and includes the writer’s reflection on

its significance

A well-told story about a specific occurrence in a writer's life

Uses vivid sensory details to engage the reader in the event

Includes some kind of revelation, implied or stated, about the event's significance to the writer

Allows the reader to experience and share the feelings of the author during the event

An Excerpt from a Personal Essay

Introduction“On a summer night of festivity and nostalgia, I realized that growing up involves bravery and perhaps that bravery lies in choosing between what one knows is right and what one feels is right.”

Body“(…) As foreign as the concept was to me, I understood how it was all too possible and even inevitable for bonds more than friendship to form (…) To my greatest, incomparable shock, even I wasn’t immune to the forces of nature and human tendencies as I thought I was.”

Body“I liked someone. I liked him a lot. I liked him despite my long and fiercely held resistance against notions of romantic love. It was an uncontrollable submission, almost involuntary. It was utterly incomprehensible and alien (…) and it took me by surprise.”

Body“(…) I stepped out of the cold white threshold of safety and walked out. It was my battlefield, and the war was between logic and emotion, between safety and a glaring risk, and between propriety and the need to be heard.”

Body

“I walked over to him. There was no turning back. I gave him my blue rose.”

Body“What happened after is in itself a tale for another time. What mattered most to me that night was the realization that I had the capacity to conquer long-upheld notions of propriety and do something I felt was right.”

Conclusion“On a summer night of festivity and nostalgia, I realized that growing up involves bravery and perhaps that bravery lies in choosing between what one knows is right and what one feels is right. But more than that, I found out too, that perhaps, in some way, I had it.”

Cesare Pavese

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

“An autobiographical narrative is like putting a

moment of your life under a magnifying glass.”