Processing Personal Essays

We've spent a couple of weeks immersing ourselves in this powerful genre.  From Tony Hawk's "Do What You Love" to a student's "No More Mystery Meet," the topics have been as varied as the structures. When it came time to try out a couple of ideas ourselves, we generated ideas from our reading, from past notebook ideas, and from what we're experiencing or grappling with in our lives.

As you know, one of the things on my mind has the topic of free time and how I think society's missing the mark a bit on it these days.  Take a look at four different drafts of my essay and see how I raise the level of my writing each time.

Easy as Pie

Would you believe there are currently over 172 million blogs? Even more astounding,  more than one million new posts are added to the internet each day. What staggering statistics!  

With so many bloggers adding so many posts, it can't be that hard to come up with possible post topics.  Before we look at what bloggers are writing about, it's important to understand why they write blog posts. Listen, it's not that hard. In fact, some might say, "It's as easy as PIE!"  

You see, when it comes right down to it, there are three basic purposes why bloggers write blogs:

• Persuade
• Inform
• Explore

Take a look at the following blog posts and try to determine why the blogger wrote that post.

ISTA Festival (SAS i)
Mockingbird (Dog-Eared)
Person of the Year (TFK)
Bringing SpongeBob to Life (TFK)
Bad Grade (Pellucidity)
It’s All in a Name (Mr. Riley’s Reflecting Pool)
Help Earth (ClimateKids)
Dogo News

Finally, when it comes time for you to write your blog posts, think of PIE and determine your purpose for writing before you begin writing.  You might be surprised at how much it helps.

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