The Personal Essay: A "Try"
A first-person essay in language alone. Its real job is to help students find the question they'd want to research later in the course.
Personal
Process: Directed drafting1 round of revision
- Length
- 1,000–1,250 words
- Modes
- Language only
- Done
- Individually
- Citation
- None required, but writers make clear whose claim is whose
The assignment sheet
The sheet I hand out (15 weeks, in person), with anything particular to one school, term, or class taken out.
Personal Essay Assignment
Length requirements: At least 1250 words.
Sample due dates, from a 15-week course (your syllabus has the dates for your class):
Rough draft due Week 5
Final draft due Week 6
In class, we looked at some examples of the “personal essay,” discussed what the word “essay” or “essai” means (to “try”), and talked about some of the key conventions of the genre of personal essays. One we read, Joan Didion’s “In Bed,” is about her migraines, and it’s full of research: some she lived, and some she had to look up.
This essay is a “try” of your own choice, meant to be quick, to help us think through a question or idea, and to understand the beginning of our research process. This is what real writing work is like, and it’s often a necessary first step to think through the beginnings of a project or idea. Similar to Elbow’s freewriting ideas, we are writing to think.
This is an exercise in working with the mode of language, primarily, and not the other modes of communication we discuss in other units. This should be more traditional of a writing assignment.
As discussed in class, remember to:
- Show evidence of a “try” in your personal essay. You should be thinking something through, working through a problem, or working/researching/thinking through a question that you have.
- Real answers to these problems are not necessary, but often there is an ending that is satisfying to read.
- Your essay should involve you–and be in the first-person perspective.
- Double space your paper.
- Give your personal essay a title (something other than “Personal Essay”).
- The goal has always been for you to think about what “research” you are interested in and what you would be motivated to gather data for, think about, and focus on for the research later in the course.
While you do not need to incorporate citations in this assignment (in fact, it may be counter to the appropriate audience and purpose of your work this time), we will for future assignments. For this assignment, focus on making your language clear, and steer your readers in the right direction regarding who said what. Is this a claim you’re making, an observation you observed, or was it someone else’s claim/observation/writing?
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Why I give it
“Essay” comes from the French essai, a try. I open with the personal essay because it lets students try out an idea before they have to defend one. The sheet tells them the goal directly: start figuring out what you’d be motivated to research.
How it runs
In a 15-week course, the draft is due in Week 5 and the revision in Week 6, both posted to a discussion board so classmates can read them. Fridays are workshop days.
In an 8-week session, students draft in class and post the revision a few days later.
Why it comes first
Everything after it in the course is research of some kind. The essay is where students find something they care about enough to research, so the course’s later projects can grow out of it instead of starting cold.
Presentations
Readings
- Phillip Lopate, ed., The Art of the Personal Essay, including Joan Didion, "In Bed"; Edward Hoagland, "The Courage of Turtles"; Addison and Steele, "Nicolini and the Lions"; Ou-yang Hsiu, "Pleasure Boat Studio"; and Sei Shōnagon, "Hateful Things"
- Peter Elbow, "How to Improve Your Writing through Freewriting Exercises"
- Vivian Zamel, "Writing One's Way into Reading"
- Denise Landrum-Geyer, "On Essaying"
Combined with others
- Starting from a personal essay 15 weeks, in person
Where I've used it
- 15 weeks, in person · Spring 2026
- 8 weeks · Fall 2025