How to Teach Personal Essay Writing

Help students find and maintain their voice

Words can break hearts or breathe renewed life into parched souls. Students will encounter personal essays at every level of their academic career. It is the teacher's job to help them succeed. Here is a technique to improve your students' personal essay writing. Students experience a creative flow: idea, question or theme; characters; story; beginning and ending.

Things You'll Need

• loose-leaf paper
• pencils or pens

Instructions

1. Give each student five sheets of paper. They will write for three minutes without stopping. Both sides of each paper must be filled. Let the students "free write" about their favorite foods or desserts.

2. Review what a personal essay is -- a short composition that illustrates the author's viewpoint on a subject. Assign them an essay that answers "what was the best meal you had this month? What made it special?" The students will free write for only two minutes.

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3. Pass out another loose-leaf sheet to each student. Students will list each person from their narrative. Have them imagine that people from their narratives are literary characters for a short story or a play. Have your students create a one-paragraph character sketch for each person. They should Include details like dress style, physical description, personality and favorite expressions.

4. Compare the details from the draft with the character sketches. The writer's feelings for each person should be clearer in the sketch. Depending on the relationship, some character sketches may be long. The person's role in the author's favorite meal memory solidifies.

5. Answer any last-minute questions before having the class write their first drafts. Collect and correct the essays.

6. Read aloud the first and last paragraph from several famous essays. Essay beginnings and endings are difficult to write. Next read a student essay. The beginning presents the essay's question and a one sentence answer. The close repeats the answer, highlighting key points from the essay's body. Have the class suggest alternative beginnings and endings. Repeat the process until each student understands what makes a good essay beginning and ending.

7. Return the corrected drafts to the students. Assign the final draft of the essay for homework.

Tips & Warnings

• When questioning students, give them several minutes to answer. If they don't, include possible answers in your follow-up questions.

References

• Scholastic; Language Arts - Make Kids Writing Shine: Using Beginnings and Endings to Teach Craft; Brenda Power
• Traci's List of Tens; Ten Prewriting Exercises For Personal Narratives; Traci Gardner; June 2005
• You Can Teach Writing; Narrative Essay Writing - An Explicit Thesis is its Central Element; July 2010