If you don't try, you may never understand. My new student, J, was in his bright red basketball jersey and shorts, and he was doing his best not to shiver. Starbucks was as cold as a meat freezer. But what he was saying warmed my mind. In the course of a short conversation, he'd already told me that as a kid he'd been pegged as "troublemaker." Or, even worse, proving the little words matter: "THE Troublemaker." You wouldn't know it now, from his composure even under the offensively strong air conditioning. But according to his teachers, he had "too much energy" and bounced around the room and, worst of all, Socrates be damned, he had too many questions. I'm like: "Hold the sauce. How is it possible to have too many questions IN A CLASSROOM?" Continue Reading …
Stories
Keep Developing Your Essay
Why we tell you to keep developing your essay ...even after admissions When Reggie handed me his college essay free-write in the middle of my Essay Intensive writing workshop at JPMorgan's The Fellowship Initiative, I just about fell out of my chair. "I haven't really written about this before," he said offhandedly. "What do you think? Could you tell me if it's good?" Students contextualize their writing this way to me all the time-- regarding everything from compulsory chicken scratch, to sob stories about a low grade on a math test, to Oedipal tales, to wrenching sagas of family illness. But this essay was different. Within a few sentences, a loved one was cruelly dead-- and his real loss was not even months old. Continue Reading …
Your topic? Your Triscuit!
"Can't Find a Topic" Blues Many young writers panic because you can't "find an essay topic" before the obnoxious January college essay deadlines. I can feel the fireworks in your belly and your rational brain turned to champagne. But the writer has allies in all kinds of places. The humble greasy Triscuit will be your guide in the story I share below. It starts with reading...someone else's topic First, reading good writing almost always shakes me out of the topic draught. It will do the same for you, wherever you get your fix. Triscuits don't come running when your mind is tight. A good topic often only comes when you aren't groping madly for something to say. At 5AM this morning, trying not to drop my phone on my sleeping baby in the dark, I read a former Essay Intensive student's engrossing personal essay draft, saturated with childhood memories. If you like knowing pedigree-- She went first to Columbia University, then to Pomona, and now left school again to flex her writing muscles in the free world. Reading her talented, bad-ass work always makes me have that itch to write. She wrote certain flash scenes from her childhood with deft attention to image-- a blanket on her mother's shoulders, a tune they always played in the car, a certain food they shared after arguments passed. And her images gave my mind a shove hard into my own. What childhood images had stuck for me? Which might have messages for me, decades later? And suddenly the dark Triscuit stood there, insulted it had taken me that long. Triscuit Triggers Before I was afraid of cheese, I loved Triscuit crackers with melted cheddar. The cheddar was sharp. The Triscuit was oily and crunchy, the household cabinet equivalent of movie popcorn. They looked hardy, whole-grain-ish-- to a fool. Triscuit crackers arrived in their glowing yellow box on the snack scene before the Gluten Villain scared all orthorexic people from the grocery store's cracker aisle. And my mom, who was Continue Reading …
Your reader doesn’t know your story
Your relationship with your reader determines your success How much should you consider your reader? Thinking about your reader too much can make you a self-conscious college essay writer. You can't write a word without wondering how it's perceived. Know this feeling?: uh-oh, is there something in my (sentence's) teeth? Just in case, you should only talk with your lips pressed against them. It's awkward but doable. But maybe not your best social strategy. Because in your response to the problem, you act unnaturally. Which itself points back to the problem. Did you follow that? No? Try this: Unnatural writing makes your essay cumbersome and-- hate to say it-- annoying. You need to find and honor the line between self-aware and self-defeating. On the other hand, not thinking about your reader enough can make your story impossible to follow. And therefore your college essay will fail to move the reader, or inspire that coveted college acceptance. Where's that happy middle place? Because there is so much your reader doesn't know unless you say it. What you should do for your reader Your reader needs your courtesy. Clarify, define or elaborate on your main references. Supply just enough context that your narrative is engaging and not confusing. Continue Reading …
Tell Us the Truth, Obviously
Tell Us The Truth What are you really supposed to tell us in your college essay? About that perfect cup of bitter coffee you made your mom, every morning, so she could have the energy to go to her job at the factory? Certainly not the obvious? Those everyday truths you live by and with? How you whisper a wish to each spoonful of sugar you put in her second, evening coffee, a wish that her life could get just a tad sweeter, and you can get just a little more sleep? Actually, yes, exactly that. Did you think the obvious was just too obvious? Sometimes the obvious is amazing. But no one puts it into words. "It takes all kinds to make a world," an old, old farmer once told me (yes, I know farmers). This after we watched a woman climb out of a Jaguar convertible at his vegetable stand, and then haggle him down from the 50 cents he was asking for his cucumbers. It's imperfect, she insisted, her perfect red-red lips somehow never coming unpursed. That's what happens when food is organic, he told her gently, shrugging. She offered a quarter. He took it. It takes all kinds to make a world. Duh? The Obvious has resonance. When you (finally) put it into words, everyone feels ownership over that observation. Like it's theirs. The obvious is said in a particular voice (yours) from a particular vantage point (yours). But it carries universal resonance (ours). Another example: My petite 11-month old son is just learning to cruise on this atrocious orange walker we found on our block. Yesterday, a man large in frame and big in bone passed him, looked down fondly and noted: They are little when they are little! The baby probably measured halfway up this neighbor's shin, and that's with bed hair, and was about the size of the man's calf. But here the baby is, all 17 pounds of him, steamrolling down the sidewalk, eye to eye with puppy dogs. They are little when they are little. Well, duh? And then there is the comedian's prerogative: Or Continue Reading …
Show and Tell in your college essay
A throwback to the first time: Show and Tell Little kids will bring anything to Show and Tell at school. The grimiest blanket. A rock from the park. A one-legged Barbie. A scratched up draft of your college essay. They hold it out with awe. It's theirs, and now everyone is looking at it. "Show and Tell!" the teacher cues. A very early lesson in attention and narrative technique. The kid launches into an explanation of why this blanket, this rock, this draft-- is awesome. Worthy of a classroom's set of eyes. Just bringing the chosen object to that circle makes it special. The trick: the audience sees the object, experiences it with the Young Narrator. Your college essay is not that different. You can pick the grimiest, most common, most scratched up topic-- and you can make it special by how you handle it. But we-- your readers-- have to see what's going on. You need to SHOW us. There are a few principles to follow, because like everything, it's not THAT simple. Prepare yourself to write. First, have fuel, your apple juice and cookies. Actually, we recommend water with lemon and some protein. And, if we're being honest, maybe some caffeine. Then, sit in a chair too small for your butt, so you won't want to stay too long and so the world feels big and possible. (Skip this step if you don't like feeling ridiculous). Take out your writing instruments. Conjure the awe and importance kids feel when they hold out that rock, Show and Tell. SHOW first, then Tell. Bring your reader to a moment in your life when something small (be small on purpose) made a big difference. Was it the team sweatshirt you picked to wear that fateful day? Was it that unnecessarily snide parting comment you made to mom? Was it a call you missed, a text you sent? Was it the kind of pen you had? Was it the last popsicle you ate? Write a scene in which we see the object and the role it played in events. Then, TELL us what the significance Continue Reading …