Personal Experience Essay (Page 2 of 2) in pdf

Personal Experience Essay Planning guide

IDEAS

Tell about a terrifying experience that you had when you were young.

Describe an important social event that you took part in. (wedding, church

party, sports event, etc.)

Tell about a family outing or vacation. What did you learn from the

experience?

Have you ever been involved in some serious wrongdoing? What lesson did

you learn from the experience?

Have you ever been involved in a generous act of kindness? What lesson did

you learn from the experience?

Relate an exciting experience from which you developed a particular talent

or interest.

All of us learn from our failures as well as successes. What is something you

gained from an unsuccessful experience?

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would do anything to get

it? How did you feel after you received or got the thing that you desired? Did it

make your life happier or more miserable? Tell about such an experience.

SPECIFIC IS TERRIFIC!!!!

The more descriptive language you use, the more you will place the reader right

there in the experience with you.

Use: See, hear, smell, feel, taste.

Describe: Emotions, thoughts, actions.

(What were you thinking, feeling and doing?)

Remember… The beginning grabs the reader’s attention and introduces the

experience (people, setting, etc.).

The middle describes the experience with detail and explains the importance of the

incident.

The end tells the outcome or results of the experience and presents the writer’s feelings

about the experience.

Finish your essay by concluding how this experience had/has influenced you.

IF YOU STILL CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING….

A good place to start is with the word I.

Write……..I was………I saw……… I did……. I went………. I cried…….. I screamed……..

NOW, just write from your heart…..double space or skip every other line so you will have

room to edit, add, remove….After the entire experience is written, go back and review.

Add details. What did you smell, see, hear??? Describe the colors of the “things” you

wrote about. BE POSTIVE! EVERYONE HAS HAD EXPERIENCES!!! YOU CAN DO IT!

Personal Experience Essay Page 2