Checking the Personals

[Katherine Fischer <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>]

Steve,
Thanks for your good ideas on dealing with those topics students often
seem to want to write about but which professors are uncomfortable with
guiding.  Over the years, I've taken a bit of a shift in my approach to
such essay writing with students.

I used to assign "The Personal Essay" as a genre.  I don't do that
anymore. I find the term "personal" is so misunderstood, so often taken as
synonomous with "confessional" or "private" that the use of it with
students often results in their feeling pressed to write about the things
you mention below.  Instead, I see "the personal" on a much broader basis
these days.  I am more inclined in the classroom to give students
"situations" or "prompts" os "snapshots" (thinly disquised writing
prompts) out of which their essays grow.  No matter what their purpose,
audience, or topic, if including "the personal" advances their paper, I
tell them to go ahead with it.  If using things like associative or
disjunctive organization (normally associated with "The Personal Essay") 
rather than traditional linear organization can advance their essay more
powerfully, I advise them to go ahead.  As comfortable as the tidy
compartments for writing are, let's face it;  it's a delightfully messy
process with lots of shape-shifting along the way.

I use lots of models with students.  E,B, White, for example, writes
nearly exclusively what would be termed "Personal Essays" and yet think of
"Once More to the Lake."  Athough revelatory in part, it is far from being
that kind of naked thing students are either anxious to do or scared to
death to do.  Among the models I use are Fitzgerald's "The Crack-Up,"
Ortiz's "Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy," anything by Dillard, Fisher's
"Once a Tramp, Always,:  anything by Hoagland, selections from _Walden_,
"Street Haunting" by Woolf, as well as several essays from nature writers
and occasionally something by Sam Johnson or Michel de Montaigne.  Reading
the models gives students a much better idea of a) how the personal can be
used even within academic writing;  b) vigorous and varied topics for
personal essay writing which move beyond tragedy, whining, and romantic
triangles.

Although I think the personal essay *may* result in some self-discovery,
the basis of it moreso is that through experience and through the self's
perspective on that experience, the writer and her essay hope to a) raise
more questions than answers, b) cast doubt on or re-iterate 
standardly-accepted beliefs and "facts," and  c) gain broader perspectives
on people, events, and "reality" outside the writer, herself, she she
"discusses" with her readers.

 Katie


On Thu, 11 Jun 1998 Profsteven@aol.com wrote:

> Sorry to take so long to respond to this, Neal.
> 
> You mention 2 problems--the students who want to write about their personal
> religion or their religious conversion and those who don't want to write about
> anything personal at all.
> 
> I see personal essays as a form of exploratory writing; in other words, one of
> the goals of writing a personal essay is that the writer discover something
> about herself that she didn't know before. Obviously there's no way to grade
> this or to even know if such a discovery occurred because (1) I don't have a
> corps of private investigators to delve into students' lives and (2) because a
> student's discovery will often not make it into the final version of the essay
> anyway (too private).
> 
> I require, though, that students think deeply about their readers as they
> write personal essays.  For those who wish to write about religion or
> conversion, I explain that simply saying "I believe in God" tells readers
> nothing, since there are many many versions of exactly who/what God is (the
> wrathful Old Testament God, the forgiving Father, not to mention all the
> concepts of God beyond the Jewish and Christian versions).  So the writer must
> really grapple with her definition of God, explain the characteristics etc.
> that SHE sees as part of her vision of God.  Usually that ultimately leads to
> some discovery on her part or at least a more profound essay (it may take a
> few revisions). 
> 
> To deepen the essay's value to readers (a key concept in personal essays which
> are an art form that strives to communicate something about the writer's
> personality and about the world or life), I have had students do some
> research, investigating other concepts of God as items to be compared and
> contrasted to the student's version (this is helpful if the student can't get
> past "God is God").
> 
> Another strategy is to ask the writer to explain the implications of her
> belief.  For example, if she says "God is love," what kind of love? who gets
> included and excluded? If anyone gets excluded, how is that justified if God
> is love, etc.
> 
> The issue of foisting my beliefs onto the student or of arguing against the
> student's beliefs never comes up--it's always about her wider audience and
> their assumptions and the need for her to explain her assumptions, etc.
> 
> With conversion experiences, I often send them to some written account of a
> conversion (e.g., St. Augustine) and have them bounce their experience off
> that earlier version--comparison and contrast.  
> 
> What I fight against in all personal essays (not just ones about religion) is
> reliance on stock phrases and unconsidered assumptions--always I'm asking in
> the margins of drafts "what does this mean to you in your own words?" and
> "what are the implications of your assumption that ...?"
> 
> I had one essay about reincarnation a few years ago that the workshop shredded
> (it was filled with catch phrases and unconsidered assumptions).  After a long
> consultation with me and then with 2 tutors in the Writing Center, he came
> back with a totally fascinating essay exploring his own uncertainty and his
> reasons for depending on his friends' experiences to define his beliefs.
> Usually, however, the faith isn't shaken but the essays get more complex, more
> thoughtful, and hence more interesting and informative for us readers.
> 
> (About now, aren't you glad you asked, Neal?)
> 
> For those who don't want to write about something personal,
> personal/exploratory writing is still useful.  I distinguish between "private"
> and "personal" material.  "Personal" material includes subjects that the
> writer might feel a bit uncomfortable revealing or exploring at first, but
> once she begins writing she discovers it's ok (she doesn't get sweaty palms
> etc.).  "Private" subject matter is anything that causes physical symptoms
> (the sweaty palms, an overwhelming and more-than-normal degree of
> procrastination, etc.).  I tell writers to always abondon such topics and more
> to something else.  Inevitably (or almost inevitably) by mid-semester material
> that most students considered too private at the beginning of the semester has
> become "personal" and available as topics as the trust within the classroom
> develops.
> 
> Even taking the worst case scenario, however, personal essays still work.  If
> a student is uncomfortable writing about her experiences or beliefs, she can
> write an essay about a text that moves her in some way or that touches her
> intellectually in some way.  Or, she can select a concept that has mildly
> interestsed her but about which she knows little and explore it (research
> here), perhaps including her original notion of that concept (say,
> vegetarianism) and what her research uncovers and whether or not that concept
> still interests her, etc.
> 
> Hope that helps,
> 
> Steve 
> 
>