Blue Winds Dancing Writing Workshop

The Personal Essay “BWD” is a personal essay essay: a brief work of nonfiction that expresses a person’s opinions or views about a particular subject Possible purposes: Analyze Inform Persuade Entertain

Function of the Personal Essay For the author: allows the author to re-create a personal experience For the reader: allows the reader to “live” the author’s experience through the author’s eyes Why might this be helpful to you as a reader? What does this allow you to do?

Why do we Need to Learn This? “The reader’s interest in a personal essay often has at least as much to do with the author as it does with the subject of the essay.” Listen to Marlin’s mollusk joke. The story isn’t that bad, but the way he tries to tell it is terrible… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRad4Y3FPdM The way you tell the story makes it come alive and makes your reader interested!

In other words… If you want people to pay attention to what you have written, you need to write in a way that appeals to others. When would this be important in the “real world”?

Style, Use of Language, Comparison We will focus on three areas of how to write a story so that your readers are interested: Author’s Style Sentence structure Imagery Use of Figurative Language Simile Metaphor Personification Use of Comparison

Author’s Style: Sentence Structure Sentence Structure: the pattern the writer uses to connect words in a sentence Good authors mix up their sentence patterns by using a variety of simple, compound, and complex sentences. Good authors vary the length of their sentences.

Author’s Style: Sentence Structure and Imagery Parallelism: (sentence structure) the use of repeated forms, phrases, or clauses that are similar (parallel) in structure to add to the “flow” of the paragraph and to make connections between ideas in a paragraph. Alliteration: (sentence structure) repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words Imagery: the use of words or phrases that appeal to one or more of the senses

Use of Figurative Language contributes to an author’s style Refers to words or phrases used in unusual ways to create strong, vivid images, to focus attention on certain ideas, or to compare things that a basically dissimilar Simile, metaphor, personification

Use of Figurative Language: Simile and Metaphor Simile: A direct comparison that uses like, as, or than; or a verb such as appears or seems Ex: “giant cacti that look like petrified hitchhikers along the highways” Metaphor: An implied comparison that doesn’t use words such as like or as Ex: “The giant cacti were petrified hitchhikers along the highways”

Use of Figurative Language: Personification when an animal, object, or idea is given human characteristics Ex: “heavy mountains holding up the night sky”

Use of Comparison Comparison AND contrast Comparison: focus on similarities Contrast: focus on differences Demonstrate dramatic differences between two topics Through comparison, the reader understands both ideas being compared even better because they are being set side-by-side

Use of Comparison If you’ve only ever had one, it’s hard to notice the subtle things you like about it until you have had the other!