1. QuickWrite Think about yourself:
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
What are your best qualities?
Are you a hard-worker? An intellectual?
A creative type? Curious? Passionate? Determined?
Write your ideas about what describes you as a person.
Consider what you wrote in your “I Am” poem, what you wrote on your index card, and what you wrote about to respond to the question, “What is life worth?”
QuickWrite

2. Step 2:
Choose a positive quality you'd like to convey about yourself (think of your audience as a college admissions board or a boss).
Don't pick an event or something you've done.
President of the Battle Dancing Club is not a personal quality.
Focus on a quality of your mind or of your character.
Complete this sentence: "I am a very _________ person."

3. Step 3: Tell a Story I am going to set a timer for 20 minutes.
Pretend you're taking an exam and responding to the following prompt: "Tell a story where you describe the world you come from – for example, your family, community, or school – and tell how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations; tell how it helped you to become a very _________ person."
Use the characteristic you identified in Step 2.
Write non-stop for 20 minutes; force yourself to keep telling the story and what it reveals until the timer goes off.

4. You’ve finished the hard part
Believe it or not…
That's it! You've got a rough draft for your personal narrative/college application essay or to give to a potential employer.
Later we’ll refine it further, but you’ve done the hard part.