Category Archives: Expository Writing

This personal essay was originally titled “Why I Write.” As the name indicates, it is about my reasons for writing, how I first knew I wanted to be a writer, and how the craft of writing has helped me to learn and grow as a person. Continue reading →

The prompt for this assignment was: “Write a personal essay about your relationship with a place.” I chose to write not about one specific place, but about a region. Although I was born and raised in Boston, my father is from Danville, Virginia (close to the North Carolina border) and most of my mother’s family also lives in the state. As a result, I went down South several times a year growing up. Being “Southern” does not just mean being from a particular part of the country; rather, it is an ethnicity, a heritage. Some may say it’s almost a nationality in and of itself. As this essay explains, my relationship with the South has changed over time, but I still love it for all its assets and imperfections. I often feel that I am a misplaced Yankee who was born in the wrong place. Continue reading →

After writing the two personal essays above, I was expected to be able to define this style of writing. In the present essay, I argue that “a personal or informal essay is an autobiographical genre that addresses a question that results in an epiphany or as particular significance to the author.” I compare and contrast the writing of James Baldwin and Annie Dillard, two essayists who serve as an excellent means of comparison in discussing the personal essay as a genre. Continue reading →