Reading and Writing Personal Essays
S06
Rebecca Godwin
“In a personal essay,” writes Phillip Lopate, “the writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom.” In this class, we read and talk and write about the best essays we can lay our hands on, from the earliest to the most contemporary. Inspired by glorious example, students begin “speaking directly” through their own personal essays. We start small, making forays into the form and reading the resulting “gossip and wisdom” aloud in class as we work toward producing finished essays. Intensive involvement in reading, writing, and talking is an absolute requirement.

Among the likely texts: The Best American Essays of the Century, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, and The Art of the Personal Essay, edited by Phillip Lopate.