Help with Topic Selection

Great work on your topic ideas today.

Three questions came up several times, so I'll answer them here and also invite each of you to weigh in with any ideas and/or help for one another. (Hint: I'll take note of folks who are willing to raise questions on the blog and those who are willing to help answer them.)

Q - I can't think of anything that's really changed my life.

A - Each of you has had experiences that have changed your life, whether you realize it or not. At age 18 (some of you are older/younger), you're not the same person you were five or ten years ago. You've learned how to make decisions for yourself, to determine what you believe, to make choices for which you'll bear responsibility.

If you're having trouble identifying a topic that seems "important enough" or one that changed you, visit (or re-visit) this website for some good questions that might help you come up with an idea:

http://members.accessus.net/~bradley/narrativeprompts2.html

Once you've gotten a couple ideas that might work, start to freewrite about each idea using the prompt, "I remember..." Write until you run out of ideas and then immediately begin another sentence with, "I remember..."

You might also look again at your interest inventory. Re-read the questions and your answers. Perhaps these will spark an idea.

The "Topic Questions" on today's handout will help you determine if an idea is strong enough to carry a personal essay.

Some of you developed ideas that were meaningful to you in ways that you couldn't define. For example, several people raised "the day I graduated from high school" as your idea.

Certainly, this was an important moment in your life, and it can make a great essay IF you think deeply about what changes occured on that day.

For example, perhaps you heard your name called and the experience of walking across the stage for your diploma filled you with a sense that something powerful was happening. Maybe you didn't know what it was until you began school here at UNCC. Your essay can be about that day, described in vivid detail, and how you weren't sure what it meant but sensed that something was happening.

Then, when you got to UNCC and were assigned this essay, perhaps you looked back and realized that what was happening was that you were absolutely free from school as you'd known it for 13 years. Perhaps thinking through this essay helped you understand that you call the shots now: no one will make you go to class, no one will call your parents if miss a test. It's all up to you. That's a big realization that might happen between high school graduation and college, even if its impact isn't understood until later.

Q - I've got several ideas but they're all tied together and I don't know how to bring all the details into one essay.

A - Almost as difficult as feeling as if you don't have anything to write about is feeling as if you have too much to write about.

For a personal essay that's to run somewhere in the four- to six-page count, you'll need to focus your ideas into one moment or series of moments that build to one important realization. In addition to using the Topic Questions in today's handout, I suggest you freewrite about your various ideas and try to find one scene that you can use as the central point of the essay.

For example, if you want to write about how depression runs in your family and how when you first got depressed, you realized what your mom went through as you were growing up and also that you were going to have to take medicine and what a great gift it is that there's medicine now because all of the stories you heard about Great Uncle Joey made you feel really sad that they didn't have medicine then for depression but you're were also thinking that the good news is that you could probably stop taking medicine for stomach ulcers now because your doctor said that your anti-depressants would make you feel so much better than your stomach would begin to heal. And guess what? It did.

An idea like this needs focus and the best way to reign it in would be to pick a scene that holds the most promise for using vivid sensory details and for creating tension, conflict, and dialogue.

From the above idea, you might describe the scene in the doctor's office when you first learned that you were clinically depressed. The conflict might be that you don't want to take medicine but you learn that you have to if you want to get better. You might limit your insight into how you first felt hope in a long time and realized that you were feeling this way because of an illness and not some personal weakness. Or you could choose a scene of your mom telling stories about Uncle Joey, which might have led you to realize that depression is a family illness and perhaps this was the first time you felt true empathy for your mom.

Q - Everyone's ideas are about getting thrown into jail or wrecking their cars. My idea isn't a big event. Is that okay?

A - Absolutely. Frequently the most extraodinary changes in our lives come from seemingly ordinary events. A big realization to us may not be so big to another writer. If your idea is about how you planted a dogwood tree at age six and watched it grow, that's a more than sufficient idea for an essay provided you delve into the meaning of the experiencefor you. What about planting that tree was significant? When you see it now, as an adult, what does it make you think of?

PLEASE REMEMBER that these answers are just suggestions and that you can choose to do whatever you wish with your essay. We'll discuss narrative strategies on Wednesday; however, it's early in the semester and I understand that you're just getting warmed up as writers. Don't freak out about the assignment. Just follow the process -- and trust the process -- and see what you come up with. You'll have ample opportunity during the semester to revise your work as you learn more and more skills to apply to your work.