Writing An Essay

Writing An Essay If they’ve changed, tell the story of the moment when they changedâ€"say, in a classroom, in a conversation with a friend, etc. What do people in your community or school know you for? It is good to be afraid of clichéâ€"but one of the truisms about clichés is that they become trite because they reiterate feelings we’ve all had. That also means that buried beneath many clichés is some authentic, particular, and personal relationship you have to your topic. In order to have this kind of time freedom, you’ll have to start early. As a Boston-born girl, my loyalty to the Patriots seems naturalâ€"even if it’s not so common for a teenage Indian-American-Californian girl to be as much of a sports junkie as I am. But I’ve seen that loyalty tested plenty of times. I’m completely invested in the Pats; I’ve been known to be giddy when they win, and tearful when they lose. However, finding a true home to watch Patriots games in California isn’t easy. By the end of the season, the staff knew what we wanted to eat, and where we wanted to sit, so the sports bar felt like a second home. By the way, this prompt helped Ramya settle on the Patriotsâ€"Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you? Ramya’s going to write about the sports bar where she watches her team play every Sunday during football season. Tell the story of the first time you did this thing. Tell the story of the most meaningful time you did this thingâ€"it might be, say, when you won a game, but it also might be when you lost a game, or when you quit the team. Tell the story of a time you saw somethingâ€"visuallyâ€"that provoked that anger or frustration. Tell the story of the first time you learned about these valuesâ€"say, a morning at Sunday School or a conversation with a grandparent. Those are just a few more narrative possibilities for structuring your essay. At 650 words, each of these will be best understood as a five-paragraph essay, so a basic structure stays the same, but the way things begin and end will not. So instead Anita decides to write about a wilderness solo she took in North Carolina on a school trip, and about how it influenced her relationship with poetry. The obvious thingâ€"and the thing most teachers and advisors told Anita to doâ€"is write about mock trial. It would be a good opportunity to give the admissions committee some insight into her psychology behind the success. She took a couple of stabs at it during free-writing, though, and it didn’t flow. Ramya could try to write something about medicine. Or she could write about soccer, dance, or speech. But none of those things seem to tell the admissions committee what they wouldn’t already know from simply reading her list of extracurriculars. Did you grow up considering another place that is not where you currently live home? Tell the story of the first time you went there or the first time you remember going there. Was there a particular timeâ€"a summer, or a yearâ€"when that place became important? And if you spend your summer warming up and training for the main event, you can start rereading your body of freewriting by the end of July. What do your friends come to you seeking help with? Tell the story of a time when you think you did a great job of helping another person. Now, to make sure you stay humble, tell the story of when that person helped you. They say a piece of short fiction is about a moment after which nothing will be the same again.