4 Application: Writing an Autobiographical Essay
Assignment Description
Students will use four kinds of writing (narration, description, exposition, and reflection) to compose an organically-structured autobiographical essay. Students should identify a particular community with whom they intend to share their story and compose accordingly. They can write to their families, their fellow students, or other communities to whom they wish to speak.
Prompt Suggestion: Share an experience that motivated you to pursue a degree in your chosen field. What happened? What did you learn? How did the experience change you? What did it make you want to do? What do you plan to do with your degree in the future?
Before embarking on this journey, we highly recommend reading the Student Resource page for The Writing Process and referring back to it whenever you need to.
Step 1: Understanding the Assignment
- Find and read model autobiographical essay to understand what an autobiographical essay “looks like.” Student samples are available in current OER, or use the narrative winner from the 2023-2024 FYC Writing Contest. Your model essay doesn’t have to be exactly the same topic as your essay; it just needs to be the same genre and perhaps inspiring to you in some way. Reading more than one might help you generate even more ideas.
- Fill out this Genre Features Chart to help you understand the pieces the text should have: This is available under Canvas FYC Course Materials / English 1013 Composition I / Additional Documents
Step 2: Prewriting
Consider the topic above or the one your instructor has specified. Begin by reflecting on a few basic questions related to the topic to help you figure out what you are writing about.
For the Suggested Prompt: What is your current major? What future career are you interested in pursuing? Who or what influenced your interest in this field? What motivated you to pursue this kind of work?
After answering these general questions, complete the Heart Mapping Brainstorming Activity to help you identify the experience and story you are going to share with you reader. (This strategy was created by educator Georgia Heard in the book Heart Maps: Helping Students. See link for further information: https://blog.heinemann.com/heart-mapping-at-home-meaningful-authentic-writing)
- Draw a heart.
- Write your major/future career at the top of the page.
- Draw lines within the heart creating 3-4 sections.
- Label each section with questions related to your topic. Below are sample questions for the suggested prompt.
| Among all of my hobbies, which have most influenced my career path? | What are some of the most important skills I should have to get my dream job? |
| What events or experiences in my life have inspired me the most? | How do the classes I take in college help prepare me for my goals? |
| What are some topics related to my major that I would most enjoy talking about everyday? | What do I love most about my future career? What am I looking forward to? |
| What are some of the greatest things I hope to accomplish in my future? | What are some reasons why I chose my major? |
| What people in my life have inspired me the most? | Was there a moment I KNEW what I wanted? |
- Next, list thoughts, memories, ideas, or sentences in each section of the map as they reflect your experiences (see fig 1).
- Review the map, reflecting on the section that is nearest to your heart. Which section were you able to produce the most thoughtful responses? Use the map to identify a topic for your autobiographical essay.
Example Heart Map
Step 3: Outlining
Complete the following Autobiographical Essay Planning Sheet. Remember, autobiographical essays are a fairly flexible genre. Your content should be accounted for and arranged in a way that makes sense for your reader/purpose, but it does not have to follow a particular organization. Your paper does not need to follow a five-paragraph format.
| Introduction
List how you plan to open your essay (quote, reflection, definition, humor, narrative, etc.) What is the primary idea you want to convey to your reader? |
Opening Device:
Thesis statement:
|
| Body
List the details you need to provide to support your thesis, choosing a specific organizational pattern. For example, if you were using a narrative organizational style:
For example, if you were using a chronological organizational style:
|
Supporting Detail 1:
Supporting Detail 2:
Supporting Detail 3:
|
| Conclusion
List your overall point or message that explains what you now understand or learned, and then provide an update of your situation or status currently. |
Restate Thesis:
Closing Device:
|
Step 4: Drafting
Use your completed outline, along with the following tips, as a guide to begin drafting your autobiographical essay. Sometimes it helps to write your pieces in chunks and then fit them together afterward, creating smooth transitions between ideas.
Introduction
- Compose an introduction that opens in an engaging way, including a quote, brief description, thought, a funny observation, etc.
- Identify your topic, which includes establishing your purpose and offering a brief preview of your essay.
Body
- In this section of your essay, draft paragraphs that specifically describe the supporting details/points listed in your outline. Don’t simply tell your reader the order of events, show them using descriptive language (hear, smell, taste, touch, feel). Also, incorporate quotes to enhance the experience for your audience.
- Be intentional about following an organizational pattern (chronological, narrative, topical, etc.) as you present supporting details in each body paragraph.
- Assure that each body paragraph opens with its own main idea, yet also clearly supports the overall thesis statement.
- Make sure to provide smooth transitions between each paragraph.
Conclusion
- Develop a closing paragraph that highlights your thesis and key details. This can include reflecting on a lesson learned or a newfound perspective, as well as offering an update of your current situation.
- Finally, consider closing your essay similarly to the way you opened it, with a quote, brief description, reflective thought, or humorous quip.
Step 5: Peer Review
Exchange drafts with a selected or assigned partner, then follow the steps below to provide meaningful feedback in a peer review workshop. Remember to cite evidence from the writer’s paper when offering constructive criticism, including highlighting effective elements in the draft. In addition to completing the handout, it may be helpful to also communicate the feedback orally to the writer, as well as making notations within the draft.
As you will also be receiving peer feedback too, remember to ask your reviewer to clarify comments, as well as provide support for effective and ineffective elements when critiquing your draft.
First, read through your peer’s draft and evaluate the effectiveness of the essay using the following checklist:
| The writer provides an engaging opening. | |
| The writer clearly identifies the essay topic. | |
| The writer offers a clear thesis statement. | |
| The writer uses a followable organizational pattern. | |
| The writer provides supporting details that describe people, places, events, and/or feelings related to their experience. | |
| The writer composes in a voice that makes sense for their purpose and audience. | |
| The pieces of the writer’s essay make sense together. | |
| The writer offers a brief overview of the thesis/supporting points in the end, including discussing any lesson learned and/or offering an update regarding the situation currently. | |
| The writer provides a memorable close to the essay. |
Finally, complete the Peer Feedback Choice Board to provide your peer writer with helpful, yet kind feedback.
Step 6: Revising
Revision can be a complex and overwhelming process. The first step is to prioritize what you will work on based on your peer’s feedback. Creating a revision plan for yourself can help this task feel less daunting.
So what is a revision plan? The purpose of a revision plan is to re-visit your work, to think through what you’re trying to accomplish, how well you’ve done that so far, and where you still need to make adjustments. Your peer’s feedback will help you do this. You can even ask your peer or your instructor what they think you should focus on for your revisions.
It’s recommended that you focus your revision plan on 3-5 high order concerns. Below are examples for what a revision plan should look like and not look like. The point is to help you think through and plan the achievable changes you can make. The more specific your plan is, the more helpful it will be to you.
What a revision plan should look like:
1. Revise my thesis: Right now, my thesis argues an issue, that not recycling is immoral. Since this is a proposal, my peer says I need to make the topic a problem to be solved rather than an issue to be argued. Here’s what I’m thinking: “In order to solve the problem of consumer waste, consumers should be given incentives to recycle . . .”.
2. My solution is clear, “Consumers need to be given incentives like tax breaks,” but the details need work. How can I make this solution happen? How can legislators be convinced? What kind of tax breaks am I talking about? How would the breaks be applied (no pun intended)?
3. I need to give more examples of how the problem has been solved in the past, and failed. I admit I need more focused research on the history of the problem. Some resources I might consult this time around are…
What a revision plan should NOT look like:
1. Revise my thesis
2. Develop my solution
3. Add more examples
Do you see how the second revision plan is not really helpful to you? It leaves changes still feeling big and overwhelming? That is why creating a plan like the first one will help you.
You can follow these steps to create your revision plan.
1. Synthesize the comments you’ve received from your peers and from me.
2. Note the most recurring comments first, issues that most people reviewers agree on. Consider how you can address those concerns in your own voice. Which advice will you take, and why? How will you incorporate it?
3. Then make a list of the kinds of less frequent comments, or where people disagreed. As you consider them, think about your goals for your project. Which advice will you take, and why? How will you incorporate it? Which advice, after careful consideration, have you decided you need to alter before you adopt it? How and why?
Do not include grammar, spelling or punctuation as part of the revision plan — those considerations are important during the proofreading stage, which should occur after you revise. And once you’ve completed your revision plan, revise! Use it as your map.
Adapted from Sweetland Center for Writing, University of Michigan
Step 7: Polishing
Review your final draft with your audience in mind, making any necessary changes to enhance engagement and clarity for your reader.
Helpful Tips
- Remember that no draft is ever really final, and as the writer you will always find some area that you may want to improve upon. Therefore, aim to create your BEST draft, not a perfect final paper.
- PROOFREAD, PROOFREAD, PROOFREAD. That’s it. That’s the tip.
- Although there are many applications like Word, Pages, or Google Docs that check documents for spelling and grammar, you should still make time to also proofread your essay.
- It may be helpful to welcome a final review from a different evaluator, such as a tutor, parent, or peer outside of your class.
- You’re finished! So, celebrate this small milestone, and enjoy the satisfying feeling of completion. BUT, no confetti until after you have successfully submitted your assignment.