COLLEGE ESSAYS PERSONAL NARRATIVE ESSAYS: ENGLISH 12 The following prompts offer ideas for the series of three personal narrative essays you will be writing. They are intended to provide material for college application essays. You may use as many of these prompts as you like, but you are not bound to use any of them; they are suggestions only, meant to stimulate your thinking. You are welcome to choose essay topics requested by colleges you are interested in, or to write on one a topic of your own invention. However, short-answer questions are not appropriate for these essays; you need to write those on your own. Every essay should be a thoughtful and well-developed gem that shows who you are. Find creative, compelling points of entry into your self-revelations. Tell stories. Speak in your own voice. Also check spelling, punctuation, and grammar carefully. Each of the three essays you write should be 500 - 1000 words, double-spaced and typed. Give each essay an exciting title that actively engages the reader. Be sure to identify the topic you are writing on, through the title or otherwise. With each essay turn in a short (half-page) typed reflection on your intent and method. What motivated this essay? What do you want the reader to take away from it? This “Statement of Intent” will NOT be graded. However, failure to turn it in will be reflected in loss of credit (5 points) for “Format and Process” grade. Turn in an edited and revised draft with the final paper or lose 10 points. COLLEGE ESSAYS COLLEGE ESSAY PROMPTS 1) Discuss the importance of names and naming in relation to your own name. Describe how you were named, what your name means (personally and historically), and how it has affected your self-image (thus, how you feel about it) and relationships to others. 2) “Traditions are an integral part of our culture. Describe a tradition that is honored by your family, your friends, or your culture (or describe one you would like to create) and explain why it is or would be important” (Stanford University Application). 3) Create a portrait of yourself ten years from now. Show clearly the direction your passions have led you, what motivated you to choose this path, how you arrived here, what kind of a person you have become. You might consider borrowing techniques from fiction to draw this lively, engaging portrait. You could also approach it as a promise you are making to yourself. 4) Tell us about a question that has continued to interest you. What experience or issue created this question in the first place? Why has it continued to intrigue you? What would you hope to understand by having it answered? 5) “If you could live in the world of any book, which book would you choose and why?” (Northwestern Application) 6) “Pick a story of local, national, or international importance from the front page of any newspaper. Identify your source and give the date the article appeared. Then use your sense of humor, sense of outrage, sense of justice – or just plain good sense – to explain why the story engages your attention” (University of Chicago Application). 7) “Discuss some creative work that could serve as a key to the way you see the world and the way you see yourself in the world. The creative work may be a scientific theory, a novel, film, poem, song, or any other art form” (University of Chicago Application). 8) Tell the story of an event (a moment or memory) that has shaped your life and helped mold your character or set your intended course for the future. It may have been a source of inspiration; events of this nature have been called “crystallizing experiences” (Howard Gardner). Or it may have revealed a strength you didn’t know you had, taught you a value you hold deeply, shown you a truth of the human condition. Recount the event and its impact upon you fully. COLLEGE ESSAYS 9) “In a pivotal scene of the film American Beauty, a videographer – a dark and mysterious teen-aged character – records a plastic bag blowing in the wind. He ruminates on the elusive nature of truth and beauty, and suggests that beauty is everywhere – often in the most unlikely places and in the quirky details of things. What is something that you love because it reflects a kind of idiosyncratic beauty – the uneven features of a mutt you adopted at the pound, a drinking glass with an interesting flaw, the feather boa you found in the Wal-Mart parking lot? These things can reveal (or conceal) our identity, so describe something that tells us who you are (or aren’t)” (University of Chicago Application; this question was inspired by an applicant, Jeremiah VanScoyoc of Ohio). 10) “How has the place in which you live influenced the person you are? Define ‘place’ in any way that you like -- as a context, a house, a city, a community, a country, a point in time (Stanford University Application). 11) “Inevitably certain things – songs, household objects, familiar smells – bring us instantly back to some past moment in our lives. Start an essay by describing one such thing and see where it takes you” (University of Chicago Application). 12) Describe your greatest accomplishment or greatest trial (and note that these may be one and the same). Be sure to use the thesis and conclusion to clarify why this trial/achievement was a valid and tremendous test of your mettle. 13) Open with a quote that has significance for you in terms of who you are and/or what you believe and to what you aspire. Your discovery of this apt quote may become part of your story of self-discovery. 14) Write a thoughtful, well-developed essay about something you used to believe but no longer do -- or vice versa. (Avoid Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.) 15) Write an autobiographical essay from an unusual and engaging perspective or in a distinctive style. You might use selected journal entries -- especially if you have kept a journal for several years -- to show changes in your views and perceptions. You might offer us two or three striking of images of yourself at different times and places to illustrate critical junctures in your life. The key, as always, is to reveal the original and passionate ways in which you think, live, understand, and interact with your world. COLLEGE ESSAYS