Personal Essay A personal essay is a nonfiction essay in which an author expresses an opinion or provides some insight based on personal experience. By connecting a topic to his or her own life, authors can make others more aware of it. – Collections text pg 31

In the essay we are going to read, Bonne Année, Jean-Pierre Benoit makes connections between his own life and historical events. Here are three possibilities from my life that I would consider writing about if I were writing a personal essay similar to Bonne Année.

Nixon Resigns as President of the United States Richard Nixon resigned in It was a big scandal called Watergate. He tried to cover up his administrations role in the break-in to the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel and the cover up that followed.

Meanwhile, at the old Logan Hospital…. Whilst, Nixon was resigning, I was at Logan Hospital on 200 North by the Logan Temple. This hospital doesn’t exist anymore. It was torn down after the one on 1400 North was built. Anyway, I was at the hospital because my grandmother had a heart attack and my parents were visiting her. I was confused and scared about what it all meant. Kids were not allowed in the room, so I was hanging out in the waiting room.

Children Everywhere Were Deprived of Sesame Street I was 6 years old and hopping mad because the only thing on waiting room TV was the Nixon resignation. LAME! No six-year old cares about Richard Nixon, or politics. They just want to watch Sesame Street. I was probably not the only annoyed 6-year-old in the country that day.

9-11: We Will Never Forget This day was completely tragic and stressful in a way that I hope I never have to live through again. I was jut about to leave for school and had the news on when I hear Katie Couric’s voice say that a plane had hit one of the twin towers. At first I thought it must be some student pilot who had made a big mistake, because it had happened in Florida a few weeks before. By the time I got to school, I knew it was no mistake. America was being attacked. I finally understood how my grandparents felt on December 7, My heart hurt.

Panic and Fear My cousin, Brent, was late for a breakfast meeting in the Twin Towers that day. Had he been on time, he would have been at the top of one of the buildings. However, he was in the subway station under the Twin Towers when the first plane hit and was evacuated before the towers collapsed. He walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to get home. There was no cell phone signal, so his pregnant wife, Debra, didn’t know if he was alive or dead until he walked in the door 6 hours later. Then, they found a working land line phone and started calling family.

If you knew someone there, the wait was painful. My friend David, who is an amateur photographer, ran to the roof of his office building after the first plane hit and took a photo of the second plane approaching. This isn’t his photo, but it’s pretty close to what he saw. It was 9 pm that night before he was able to contact family and friends to let us know he was OK.

Not all personal essays need to be connected to tragedy. My third example is not tragic - unless you rooted for Brazil in the World Cup in 2014.

Brazil vs. Germany : July 8, 2014: Belo Horizonte, Brazil Final Score: Brazil 1-Germany 7

The German Fans

Tweet from the Match

The (Sad) Brazilian Fans

Tweet from the Match

Nielsens are Team Germany! My sister is married to a German and her family lives in Germany. We were all texting & tweeting each other like CRAZY during the game- especially me and my 14- year-old nephew. We love World Cup because we were all in Germany in 1998 when Germany hosted the games. This time, even though we were half a world apart from each other, we used technology to celebrate the victory together.

What would you write about for a personal essay?

Now that you know about personal essays, let’s talk/learn about the country of Haiti.