Writing your Truth – The Personal Essay
Writing a personal essay is, very simply, about writing your truth. The voice in it is yours, an Irish teenager about to finish school, and the content is your views and thoughts on life and the world around you.
See the personal essay as a chance to reveal your personality. It is a chance to explore your attitudes, emotions, hopes and beliefs; the more original the better- show off what makes you unique and make your essay memorable as a result. Personal anecdotes can greatly contribute to revealing personal memories and feelings and can also be hugely entertaining. You also have the option of exploring your opinions and thoughts on more universal themes.
You can be flexible in the style of writing you use– try descriptive writing in one paragraph, anecdotes in another, argue a particular point of view in another. As long as your true personality is shining through the style can vary. People generally write better when they are writing ‘what they know’ so the personal essay is a great choice for most LC students. Here are some examples of titles that came up in 2020:
⬤ Write a personal essay in which you reflect on what you are proud of in your life.
⬤ Write a personal essay in which you celebrate friendship and reflect on how you have been influenced by the unique and diverse personalities of your friends.
If you’re stuck for ideas think about how the topic relates to you under some of the following headings:
⬤ You in a personal way
⬤ Family
⬤ The Local community
⬤ Ireland – national level
⬤ The world – global level
⬤ A humorous angle
⬤ Popular culture
⬤ Literature and History Here’s a sample introduction for the task from 2020 in which you reflect on what you are proud of in your life.
‘People in their right minds never take pride in their talents’, ‘He that is proud eats up himself’. ‘Pride goes before a fall’ - we are repeatedly told in life not to be proud. We are warned of its dangers in novels like Pride and Prejudice where the heroine Elizabeth Bennet almost loses her opportunity for true love (and financial bliss!) through her stubborn pride. I feel, however, pride can be a constructive emotion and quality that drives us to achieve great things and to contribute to our society positively. I haven’t won any Nobel prizes as yet but I have accomplished a few things in my life that give me pride and contribute strongly to my sense of identity and my selfesteem. They are generally accomplishments that were difficult to complete, that involved physical and emotional challenges that I would rather have avoided but that made me grow as a person. One thing I’ve learned, as I reach the age of adulthood, is that Theodore Roosevelt was right when he said: ‘Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.’
The following techniques can be used to great effect in personal essays:
⬤ A Conversational Tone: imagine you are chatting to someone when writing a personal essay and that you are telling them all about yourself. (This doesn’t mean you should use slang or textspeak) Using a conversational tone creates intimacy with the reader and draws them in to your writing.
⬤ Use personal pronouns: It might seem obvious but use the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘me’ throughout the essay. Saying ‘this is how I see things’ is a more pleasant way to voice an opinion than saying ‘this is how things are’.
⬤ Quote: A well-chosen quotation from a piece of writing/song lyric that you love can set off an introduction or conclusion to a personal essay really well. E.g ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done,’ Nelson Mandela. Start collecting them now!
⬤ Be honest: Be frank about your thoughts and neuroses – the personal essay is all about TMI! (That’s ‘too much information’ for any remaining pre-internet readers out there). Tell anecdotes from your own life – you may think that nothing interesting happens to you but curiosity about other people’s lives is a key part of the human psyche (hence our passion for soap operas).
⬤ Humour: Take the truth and exaggerate it (hyperbole) to add humour to your work. If an examiner is laughing and enjoying a piece of writing they’re less likely to be picking holes in it. Test out your laughinducing writing skills on your teacher over the coming months as a humorous tone can sometimes be tricky to convey on paper.