Course description:

 The personal essay is a form that has recently come back into fashion. In this case we will engage the form by writing our own personal essays as well as reading and responding to the work of writers who have come to define the genre: examples include Michel de Montaigne, Charles Lamb and E.B. White, as well as more contemporary writers such as John Didion and Scott Russell Sanders. We will explore the differences between shaping experience as truth in a personal essay or memoir and as a work of fiction. As a definition of personal essay evolves, we will consider whether personal writing and essay writing (or "essaying") have a place in academic writing. Students in this class will also be able to prepare a personal statement for their application for graduate or professional school.