Personal Narrative: A Personal Essay

The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some

I was ten, the most terrifying event I had been through was riding the little dragon roller coaster at the fair, but that night changed it all. The fear that started in my head spread like wildfire to the rest of my body from the tips of my fingers to the bottoms of my toes. My heart was racing so fast that it could have beat Usain Bolt in a 100m dash. Stop, drop and roll, three steps that should have come naturally, but instead I froze, looked down at my yellow and black checkered flannel in complete terror, fearing for my life.

I had always assumed that my legs were strong and that I had decent muscle control, however, this thought was proven wrong at the beginning of my junior year in high school due to a detrimental injury. It was the first game of fall league for basketball, and within the first five minutes I had succumbed to an injury. Tearing my ACL and Meniscus has taught me to continue improving on my strength, not let this one injury keep me down, and to keep a positive mindset.

Russell Baker, a popular journalist, admitted that at one point in his life he had trouble writing. In his article, “ Discovering the Power of My Words” he explains how he found his writing process. In his junior year of high school, his English teacher assigned an essay asking the student what they had done over their summer vacation. Baker was confused and did not know what to write but then had the idea to write about his first experience eating spaghetti with his family. “Suddenly I wanted to write about that, about the warmth and good feeling of it, but I wanted to put it down simply for my own joy, not for Mr. Fleagle. It was a moment I wanted to recapture and hold for myself. I wanted to relive the pleasure of an evening at New Street. To write it as I wanted, however, would violate all the rules of formal composition I’d learned in school, and Mr. Fleagle would surely give it a failing grade. Never mind. I would write something else for Mr. Fleagle after I had written this thing for myself.” (Baker 51) Baker encourages his audience by stating that one should write about experiences that they have had or anything that they have knowledge on. This will make you feel more comfortable. The writing will also be natural and more enjoyable to read. When he uses this method of writing, not only does he get a good grade on his paper, but he saw the enjoyment that it brought his classmates when his paper was read out loud.

He cried on my shoulder that morning in his hospital room when he saw himself in the mirror for the first time. The right side of his handsome face sagged, and he couldn't open his drooping eye. He didn't cry because of vanity, but rather because the image looking back at him represented a lost way of life.

“I could see it. Feel it. Whatever - I could tell where the foam was…what I remember are pictures: high-contrast images of cubicle walls and offices doors, as though I'd seen them with my eyes” (Bains). By her experiencing an experiment she did herself, she adds a clear opinion in the article. Because her experience of the experiment going smoothly, she clearly exposes her opinion about the article's topic. Also, when Bains quoted those who’ve gone through an experience, their words are a bit over exaggerated. “‘I suddenly realized that my perception had shifted, I had some kind of internal map of the city in my head’”(Bains). Those hyperboles create a visual and an understanding of what the experiment does to one's senses, proving that something did indeed alter them. Bains convinces the reader to believe her point of view by using examples from the past and current

In August, our first day in the college class, Mrs. Garth talked with the class about what this semester was going to be like. She spoke to us as college students and not little children. She told us that Comp. was all about writing. As a class, we knew there would be more writing than we were use to, but the very first paper that Mrs. Garth told us to write was unlike any other paper I had ever wrote on my own. We were told to write about our favorite foods, our not so favorite foods, or a tragedy that has happened to us in our life. Of course, I wrote about the tragedy, my paper was written on the note of my grandmother passing away. I used very descriptive details in my writing about what the days were like for me and how I felt after she was gone. While writing the paper, I thought to myself

Initially, it was difficuilt to be able to start off the paper, for I didn’t know what I was going to even talk about or what story I would tell. But in an instant, all the words just started to flow to me. Word after word, paragraph after paragraph. The ideas wouldn’t stop flowing. It was like watching Huidini perform, it was something extremely magical. But then as I had feared the worst, my eyes were

I stared at the mirror and tears trickled down my face. It was the kind of feeling where all the pain that you had been storing came out in full force. I wanted to smash the mirror in hopes that while smashing it, my pain would be smashed too. I hated myself.

Contrary to popular belief, conceptual art is not easy, not even for the experts. I thought writing about a wall full of writing would be easy, boy was I wrong. For quite a while I racked my brain on how I would possibly write a paper based on cursive writing written by a group of students in Nova Scotia as a form of punishment from Baldessari, I came up blank. How would I be able to all to put forth an intellectual sound paper with how the art piece is structured based on sentences written in repetition "I will not make any more boring art"? I thought about this piece on numerous occasion, sometimes while at work trying to decipher what this painting meant to

Grealy, the author of “Mirrors” starts her essay with memories of her childhood. As a child, her self-hatred started after needing half of her jaw removed results in her looking different from the majority of kids. She emphasizes that she enjoyed Halloween as a child because a mask could hide her abnormal face. Grealy only felt normal as “she breathed in the condensed, plastic-scented air under the mask” (Grealy). Her childhood was spent in grief and self-hatred knowing “no one would ever love her” (Grealy).

In the poem “Birches” by Robert Frost and the famous scientific research paper “The Patterns in Thumb and Finger Marks” by Francis Galton are two significant examples that illustrate that the purpose and the form of a text allows meaning to be drawn from it.

Written word is perhaps the most powerful medium that humans have created to express their thoughts. A person can express a myriad of emotions through pen and paper, ranging from hope and happiness to morbid obsessions and anxiety. Written words, unlike spoken words, are for eternity. Once a thought is written down, anyone can read it, interpret it, ponder it, or question it, until it is destroyed. On the other hand, if a thought is spoken, it exists only for a second and then exists only in the minds of the one who uttered it and those who heard it. Only those who were present can interpret, question, or ponder that thought. If the paper or whatever material a thought

“Rinda, please read the next paragraph for us,” stated Mrs. Wright. Feeling my ears and face turn stop sign red with the sense of the walls closing in, I began to sweat. “Ppp, puh, puh,” I stuttered. Mrs. Wright sternly announces, “Photograph.” In my monotone voice, I repeated her and continued on with the rest of the paragraph, which bared less challenging words for a second grader. She then asked me what I thought about the paragraph after I finished reading it. I told her and the whole class, I don’t know. I could hear snickering all around me, and did the only thing left for me to do. I sank deep into my chair, praying for her to move on. She proceeded to explain the context of the paragraph to the class, before she selected

After I finished, I cleaned up and went upstairs to get ready for bed. I turned on the TV and it turned on to “Sherman’s Saturday Show starring Sally Smith”. As I brush my teeth I stare at the mirror, but all I see is my reflection. I spit out the taste of the minty fresh toothpaste in the shiny, white sink. I lay in my bed and fall asleep to the sound of the TV playing in the background.