Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page - Softcover

Sometimes it is difficult to face the truth. It is even worse to write it down. Fortunately, this book shows how to interpret life's powerful memories, overcome the fear of placing private truths before an audience, and, finally, form those experiences into personal essays. Bender uses classroom-tested methods to help professional and amateur authors master eight classic essay structures, including description, definition, narration, and persuasion. In textbook format, each chapter begins with a student's first draft. Then Bender assigns a writing prompt called a "write question" followed by suggestions for modeling poetry, clustering, or timed "freewrites." Writers are encouraged to respond in three ways to their own first drafts: by repeating memorable phrases, reporting what feelings are evoked, and determining what else needs to be told. A final student draft is provided and critiqued to show readers how another writer worked through the same problems they are experiencing. Anyone wanting to submit work for publication will find helpful hints in the final chapter. This is a thoughtful, thorough book in a somewhat neglected genre. Bender's creative, yet practical methods would serve potential E. B. Whites equally well in the classroom, with a writing group, or at the kitchen table. Patricia Hassler