Re: Checking the Personals

[Denise Rogers <drogers@linknet.net>]

Steve,

>
>I think personal essays can be a gift from the gods to those of us who teach a
>lot of writing courses--I agree that they can be the most interesting essays
>that students write because, once they get a sense of what that kind of essay
>is, they are writing about something about which they are an "authority" of
>sorts.  I love my Personal Essay course.

At Arkansas, we had a class called "Essay Writing" that I really enjoyed
teaching. I got some wonderful essays. I had an student who was kind of a
hippie, and he wrote the most fascinating essays about music,
reconciliation, spirituality--you name it. We conducted the class as a kind
of workshop (there were only 10 students in it at the time he took it), and
he really made the rest of the students work harder. They loved reading his
stuff (I did, too), and this made many of them think more about their own
writing.

I really enjoyed your post about the religion/spirituality issue in essay
writing, by the way. I do think that spirituality issues are valid sources
for essays (certainly as valid as any others), and your discussion of ways
to talk to the student about constructing the essay were very helpful. If
you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them. Do you give
particular assignments in your class that lead to such topics? What kinds
of assignments do you give in your Personal Essay course?

Denise