ESSAY 1

EXPRESSIVE/LITERARY WRITING
Instructions: The first essay will be an expressive essay that uses techniques from literary writing. The goal for
this essay is to share a personal experience that makes a point. The story must reveal something that you have
learned from living through the experience. In addition, the story must focus on a single event that happened to you
and has significantly changed you.

Objectives
The objectives below are requirements in order to have your essay accepted. It is the criteria in which your paper
will be evaluated by your professor. Please review the course packet to help guide you or ask your professor or a
writing tutor in the Learning Lab for assistance.

1. The story must use first-person point of view.

2. The story must reveal personal details about yourself.
3. You must use narration as a pattern of organization and follow the story’s chronological order.
4. You must also use description of a person or place.
5. The story must express a conflict and a show a resolution.
6. You must have at least one paragraph of reflection, where you as narrator focus on how your experience
influenced and changed your life. This will probably be your conclusion.
7. Your story must avoid sounding formal and academic. Use conversational language such as slang and
dialect that connects directly to the way you speak and live your life!
8. Essay must be a minimum of 600 words or two typed pages (do not exceed four pages!)

Essay Structure
Although expressive essays are informal in style, you will attempt to follow some narrative structure. This means
that your story will have a beginning, middle, and end, while also reflecting on the deeper meaning of your
experience. If you feel confident about your narrative writing skills, you may create your own narrative structure and
tell your story. Otherwise, I suggest following the order below:

INTRODUCTION
Your first paragraph should bridge your readers into your experience. Begin your story right “in the action” by
describing for readers what how you felt and what you saw as the action happened. Use imagery and dialogue to
help illustrate for readers. In addition, consider summarizing to avoid going on tangents, stick to the story you plan
on telling! Remember, show don’t tell! You may end your first paragraph with a reflection sentence that
encapsulates for readers the importance of what they are about to read.

BODY PARAGRAPH(S)
You may write as many paragraphs as you need to tell your story. Consider following these tips:
1. It is customary in an expressive essay to use dialogue.
2. In expressive and descriptive writing, use descriptive language—that is, describe people, places, things and ideas that
you refer to, and do not simply name them.  Think in terms of the five senses:

Sight—Paint a word picture of what you are describing.  Try to do this well enough that if your audience
reads your words and later encounters the same scene for the first time, they will have an “Aha!” moment of
recognition,
Sounds—If appropriate, describe what you heard or hear in the situation you are writing about. 
Touch, smell, and taste—If appropriate, describe these sensations as well. 
 3. In expressive essays, describe your feelings.  Use feeling words like: love, happiness (joy), sadness, pain (hurt),
anger (fury), fear, pleasure, loneliness, excitement, comfort (safety, relaxation, contentment), shock, pride, scorn
(contempt), shame (guilt, regret, modesty, shyness), boredom, fatigue (exhaustion, feeling tired, sleepiness),
jealousy (envy, greed, ambition) and interest (curiosity, desire), or verbs describing these feelings.  As you write,
own your feelings.  Do not write, “there was some anger in the air about this betrayal,”  Write, “I became angry
because they betrayed me.”

4. Let your words carry the load, and do not rely on exclamation points. Even if the situation you describe is very
exciting or emotional, avoid exclamations like: "Wow!"  "Damn!"  "Oh God!"  or the like.  And, never USE ALL
CAPITALS to emphasize an exclamation.

REFLECTION
Consider your last paragraph as a reflection passage that discusses how you were influenced in the short term (back
then during the experience) and in the long term (in the present moment). As a narrator, it is your responsibility to
guide your readers into understanding how you feel and to express who you are—the goal of this essay assignment!
If you feel confident about your narrative writing skills, you might consider spreading your reflections in short
passages throughout your story and end with a small one-to-two sentence reflection that wraps up your ideas.
Otherwise, stick to reflecting your ideas at the end of your essay.

∞
REMEMBER: There is no right or wrong way to write an expressive essay. But it is ultimately up to you how you
successfully share your experience with readers. This takes some thinking and processing your ideas—planning!
And it will be what you will graded on!