It is my firm belief that in order to be honest in creative and personal writing that we must speak from our own experiences; we must write that of which we know. The difficult part of doing this is translating the personal experiences and observations into something that can be understood through the senses of someone else. The magical thing about writing in this way is our ability to detect all five senses simply through the application of word choice, delivery, structure, as well as rhetoric. The art of persuading the audience into the inner workings of our minds and experiences is the most useful tool I could have learned from examining and learning to understand this type of composition through analyzing the works of Andrew H. Malcom’s personal essay titled, DAD, Ilene Raymond Rush’s open letter titled, A Love Letter to my Endocrinologist for Valentine’s Day, Henry Louis Gates’ memoir titled, Lifting the Veil, and Rebecca Skloot’s auto-ethnography titled, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, comparing and applying them to my own pieces and projects.
“The first memory I have of him – of anything, really – is his strength”(Malcom). I believe the opening statement of his personal essay draws the reader in quick, which is the first thing I noticed about this piece. Because I found this delivery so enticing, I decided I would use similar structure in the personal essay of my own about my experience taking ballet lessons, “It took every ounce of incentive in me to pull the pale, pink tights up my damp, sweaty legs”(My Personal Essay). Even though you don’t have the clearest idea of what my essay may be about from the first sentence, it doesn’t really matter because the description of the action and emotion makes the reader curious as to what exactly is going on in the scene. Malcom’s piece does this multiple times throughout the entire essay, including the following paragraphs stating, “When my cat killed a bird he defused the anger of a 9-year-old with a little chat about something called ”instinked”(Malcom). As the opening sentence for this next paragraph, it isn’t exactly an extremely smooth transition statement connecting the first paragraph to the next because the ideas, essentially, have nothing to do with each other. However, it doesn’t really matter and the reader doesn’t really notice because it is so enticing that you just want to keep reading. This is how I strive to write. Additionally, I noticed the rhetorical way in which the author addresses the fact that as he got older, his father didn’t tell him what to do anymore. The father-son relationship develops and progresses and we too, as the reader, progress with the essay, “His powerful hands, then age 33, wrapped all the way around my tiny arms, then age 4, and easily swung me up to his shoulders to command all I surveyed”… “I began to see, too, his blind spots, his prejudices and his weaknesses. I never threw these up at him. He hadn’t to me, and, anyway, he seemed to need protection. I stopped asking his advice; the experiences he drew from no longer seemed relevant to the decisions I had to make”(Malcom). It is my belief that the incredibly descriptive language puts the reader inside the world the author describes, and it makes it easier for us to understand the topic he is addressing, how as we get older, we often begin to see our parents more and more as people and not just our parents. In my own personal essay, I express time by stating my age at the beginning of each section which gave my essay flow while keeping the reader addressed, especially when it came to what I learned from my experience at the very end; the reader knows this to be my current age and mindset.
When assigned our open letter assignment, it was only natural for me to want to write about something personal because it is my belief that letters are very personal and intimate forms of communication in the first place. The path I took aimed to reflect upon my experience being in an abusive relationship, and how after breaking up I was forced to learn how to be alone. I took inspiration from Ilene Raymond Rush’s, A Love Letter to my Endocrinologist for Valentine’s Day because I appreciated the honesty and in-depth description of her own experience regarding a very personal topic and noticed the pathos involved in her ability to speak honestly about herself. Her letter begins with a forward-type passage almost like a preface to the letter, seemingly written for the general public’s benefit about Dr. X. For this reason I chose to write to a very specific audience that would potentially benefit from hearing my own experience and what I learned because Rush’s open letter made it evident to me that having a specific audience only improves the quality and attention to detail within a piece such as this. Rush calls out certain doctors she experienced and I enjoyed that she could be open and confident in her accusations. As she goes further in depth about all the great qualities her doctor possesses, she moves further into her own insecurities and feelings, “Before Dr. X, there was the doctor who took one look at me, announced I carried too much weight in my middle, and told me I needed to exercise (I was, at the time, running six miles per day)”… “ Never has my endo passed judgment; he simply notes it and, if he sees it as a problem, we discuss how I might change up my diet or exercise plan. Not feeling that he’s going to disapprove of me is a big boost in my care, because rather than leave his office feeling guilty or angry, I consistently leave better informed and ready to tackle another six months of care”(Rush). Her blunt and honest delivery inspired me to be honest and specific in my own open letter, “I think the scariest part of ending our relationship was the thought I’d become lonely, but even in solitude we are left to our subconscious and the thoughts and feelings that live there. I’ve spent so much time with myself these past several months, long enough, I think, to grasp what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time: This past year I’ve learned how to be alone, but in the years leading up it wasn’t something I didn’t know I didn’t know how to do”(My Open Letter). Even if my audience is not able to physically feel the emotions or experience the struggle described through my own pathos, in order to translate my experience into something that can be perceived from an outside perspective, being as honest as I possibly could was one of the most important lessons learned from writing my open letter.
Following the open letter, my attention shifted towards the daunting challenge of writing a memoir. After reading various examples of memoirs it became apparent that there was no “set” structure or rules, rather the simple task of creating a personal piece with the continuous flow of memory, recounting experiences and hence, the intentional recognition of personal growth. This made sense to me in the sense that this is what is so of life: constantly evolving and growing. My biggest takeaway from Henry Louis Gates’ memoir, Lifting the Veil, focuses less on rhetoric or structure and more on the art of digging deep into both understanding and drawing meaning from in depth personal reflection. In Gates’ memoir, he shares various memories of places and the people that the places reminded him of, writing about these memories in the form of a letter to his daughter, which in turn, ends up being the first draft of her memoir. Reading his memoir begs the question of whether or not to add various personal aspects to a piece and where exactly the line exists between what you do and don’t feel comfortable sharing to the public. However, in the end, I believe that thinking deeply about one’s past and past relationships is what eventually brings forth new discovery and growth: “Be prepared for the revelation of things you don’t even dream are going to come up”(Gates). Gates’ memoir expressed the importance of writing for yourself, and yourself alone; that the idea of censorship is irrelevant on the path towards self discovery, even if you are not proud of every last detail. In my own memoir, I focused on my personal experience growing up and experiencing the shift between adolescence and adulthood as well as the lessons I learned doing so, “All these experiences, not just one, have taught me what it means to truly think about how what I say and do impacts my life, and how these decisions influence others as well… I remember how much I looked up to my babysitter, and now I believe a part of growing up and learning to think critically is also a part of becoming a leader and role model for others. I am who I am because of those who shaped me, and now I believe I am ready to do the same for others”(My Memoir). I didn’t know it at the time, but writing my memoir was one of the most self-reflecting experiences I ever had and gave me a new perspective on personal writing.
Lastly, we turn to the auto-ethnography. In complete honesty, for the longest time I grappled with the mere question of what an auto-ethnography was in the first place. I had never heard of something that combined personal experience and reflection as well as research from outside sources. However, as the process unfolded, it became very evident to me that there is so much beauty in one’s ability to share their own experiences and lessons while simultaneously proving their own validity with actual evidence. In the case of Rebecca Skloot’s auto-ethnography, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I understood that a lot of research went into writing an ethnography, but I didn’t realize how accurate one can truly be until reading this piece. Not only can an auto-ethnography be valid in that it discusses real people, real places and real events, but there is an overwhelming sense of fact and truth in one’s ability to accurately depict the real mannerisms, voices and ways about people. In Skloot’s piece, it is amazing how she is able to capture the essence of a person by writing exactly the way they speak, regardless of the errors, regardless of inaccuracy, “If you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they said, that’s dishonest. It’s taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves”(Skloot). This has lead me to wonder whether every auto-ethnography is similar regarding the accuracy of the depiction of its subjects and how much of it is analyzing and/or interpretation. I did not understand how research could be performed based on personal, non-fictional experiences. In my own auto-ethnography, I answered this question. At first, I expressed my story only to follow it with the data I had gathered, long after discussing all topics of research. However, after some thoughtful feedback, I was encouraged to allow the research I had done to be incorporated into the story itself and connect in a more fluid way. There was no need to separate personal experience from the research when they go hand in hand, “I had never been faced with a situation like this before because my phone was always somewhere close, if not on me; I always knew where it was and it rarely ever left my sight. In the 2018 global mobile consumer survey: US edition, on average, people check their smartphones 47 times a day — 82 times if they are between the ages of 18 and 24. Honestly, in my opinion, I think I was probably checking my phone hundreds of times a day”(My Auto-ethnography). My feelings and thoughts towards my situation of not being able to have my phone was, in a sense, backed up by the factual evidence that I was not alone in those feelings. Eventually, through careful consideration of the information I researched, personal experience and evidence I accumulated, I was able to answer my own fruitful question that began my search in the first place.
I still believe in the art of persuasion in writing because pieces such as these along with the hundreds of others I have read during my lifetime, have all rubbed off on me in one way or another. Persuasion does not necessarily mean that one must dump their own beliefs onto an audience, and that success can only be defined by the audience’s acceptance and recognition or changing of opinion. I believe the essence of persuasion has far more to do with encouraging the reader to enter the world, mind or idea you are describing in the same exact way in which you experienced it yourself. After studying the wide range of pieces provided by the course, all varying in intention, structure and purpose, as well as developing my own pieces, I believe that I, now, have the ability to express myself in ways I did not know I could. I was a perfectionist in every aspect of the word, but there is something very imperfect about writing about personal experience in that we all have had our own faults, made our own mistakes, and regretted our own decisions, but after all that has challenged us, we have accomplished making it through and coming out the other side very changed, very improved, very human and very real people.
Bibliography and Works Cited
Baker, Russell, and Gates, Henry L. “Inventing the Truth: the Art and Craft of Memoir, Lifting the Veil” Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Malcom, Andrew H. “DAD.” New York Times Chicago Bureau.
Rush, Ilene Raymond. “A Love Letter to my Endocrinologist for Valentine’s Day.” Everyday Health, Ziff Davis, 10 Apr. 2018,
Skloot, Rebecca. “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Picador, 2018.
Alice Unkrich Composing Self 