Personal Essay: In an Open Field, Near a Gravel Pit

I had a wonderful English teacher at Brighton High School in Salt Lake City, Susannah Kesler. She was one of those special educators who cared equally about words and about us students. She took the time to review with me multiple drafts of the short essay below (which finally appeared in a student journal in 1982, Runes).

As I stayed after school to review each version, she was encouraging but demanding. She made me be accountable for each and every one of this essay's 773 words, weeding out the extraneous adjective and pinning down the core of my experience with just the right image, just the right rhythm in the phrasing. She required of me an almost religious respect for expression and for the rigors of revision. As I complied with her coaching, the writing became more authentic, more interesting to me. I felt connected to things bigger than myself as the little experience I was relating achieved focus, shape, and depth. I realized the joy of being a writer. 

What a beautiful thing it is to discover the poetry of prose, the power of personal expression, and the way literature connects people. The writing of this essay made as much of an impression on me as the experience I describe in that open field. 

Thank you, Miss Kesler.

The Personal Literary Narrative

Example of a personal literary narrative

My previous post, "Fully Empowered by Poetry," models a hybrid genre I wish for my students to imitate: the personal literary narrative.

This type of writing is a combination of three kinds of writing:

1. The personal essay
   It is framed as a personal narrative, and not as a detached academic analysis. It emphasizes individual perspective and attempts to convey the emotion of authentic, lived experience.
2. Literary criticism
   At the same time, integrated within this reflective piece, is literary analysis which fulfills the traditional function of literary criticism: it identifies and interprets both literary methods and themes -- form and content.
3. The blog post
   It has the casualness, brevity, and immediacy of online writing. It also is visually composed, with an accompanying image and text that is set off and spaced for easy consumption. This writing is also embedded in social media (links to the post were disseminated via Google+ and via Facebook, and these elicited immediate responses -- see below). 

Screenshot from my Google+ stream, showing quick response to post

Screenshot from my Facebook stream, showing responses
(see "likes" below)