Personal Essay Reflection:
When I was listening to how the personal essay is supposed to be constructed, I was going for a vulnerable yet honest approach on my life, where I started, where I am now, and how I want to be in the future. I wanted to follow the characteristics that was shared in class on how the personal essay should be constructed. I wanted to follow the steps of having intimacy, confiding with the readers, unity, conversational, added dialogue, honestly, confessional, forgiving, and reliable. I remembered to embrace the concept of showing my story not just telling with my words, showing how the development of my identity has evolved as I have grown up.
Thoughts that I had during the process of writing my personal essay was what message am I trying to give? How can I deeply connect with the readers in a way that helps them see the lens of life from my perspective? Can I be outspoken, passion-driven about what I stand for inside my personal essay without coming off as aggressive or vague? With these questions I was allowing myself to still feel free in my writing but also learn how to properly use rhetorical knowledge to connect my personal essay to a problematic concept. I also didn't want my personal essay to come across as a sad, pessimistic, story that holds empty invaluable promises to the people reading the paper. I used story telling, dialogue and the mindset of sharing my experiences in my identity as a black woman to guide me in only talking about how I was affected based on my race solely. I loved the freedom I had to share a piece of myself with people who do or do not understand what I had gone through, but can also feel the encouragement of learning how to overcome any obstacle they have in life and to grow by any means necessary in life.
Overall, I really had a lot of fun with this writing piece. It felt so nostalgic, sad, overcoming, empowering, and in a way it was a form of closure of some demons I still felt like I had locked up in my head. It helped me truly see how much I have grown as a woman, a black woman, and first generation American. It expanded my horizons in using rhetoric in my life and making it my story.
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