PERSONAL ESSAY

This workshop is open to K-12 educators only. 

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means,” Joan Didion famously wrote. This quotation suggests a model for essay writing not as the translation of pre-formed ideas into language but the very discovery, through the art of language, of those thoughts, ideas, perceptions, speculations, and conclusions that transform readers and writers alike.

This six-hour class will be more of a laboratory than a factory, a place where discovery — not industry — is the main goal. That having been said, by the end of the day each student should walk away with a solid first draft of a personal essay. Assignments and discussion will emerge from readings of work by Didion, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, and others. We will also explore the mechanics and possibilities of essay-writing through friendly critique of participant work.