To Write An Extraordinary College Essay, Tell An Ordinary Story

To Write An Extraordinary College Essay, Tell An “Ordinary” Story Imagine that each different part of you is a bead and that a select few will show up in your essay. They’re not the kind of beads you’d find on a store-bought bracelet; they’re more like the hand-painted beads on a bracelet your little brother made for you. For years I’ve been interested in the street artists and musicians in downtown Austin who are so unapologetically themselves. As a result, I’ve become more open-minded and appreciative of unconventional lifestyles. TED gives me the opportunity to help other youth understand new perspectives, by exposing them to the diversity of Austin where culture is created, not just consumed. Note that I couldn’t come up with something for the last one, “knowledge,” which is fine. Read her essay below, then I’ll share more about how you can find your own thematic thread. Share all your brainstorming content with them and ask them to mirror back to you what they’re seeing. It can be helpful if they use using reflective language and ask lots of questions. I am a diehard Duke basketball fan, and I can identify all of the Duke basketball fans at my high school on one hand. I’ve gotten different Myers-Briggs personality types every time I took the test. I became a pescatarian this year to avoid fried chicken, and I can honestly get a life’s worth of meat out of cod, salmon, tilapia, shrimp, you name it. The theme of your essay is the thread that connects your beads. It could be an experience, a person, a bookâ€"anything that has had an impact on your life. Each of the values creates an island of your personality and a paragraph for your essay. Without a father figure to teach me the things a father could, I became my own teacher. I learned how to fix a bike, how to swim, and even how to talk to girls. I became resourceful, fixing shoes with strips of duct tape, and I even found a job to help pay bills. I became as independent as I could to lessen the time and money mom had to spend raising me. Living without a father meant money was tight, mom worked two jobs, and my brother and I took care of each other when she worked. As with the Type A essay, complete the brainstorming exercises described at the start of this chapter. No matter which structure you choose, these exercises help. Take special care to complete the Feelings and Needs Exercise, as it can be a powerful essay-outlining tool. Next, the author used the Narrative Structure to give shape to his essay. First, the author brainstormed the content of his essay using the Feelings and Needs Exercise. As my step-dad slipped away, my mom continued working, and Fernando’s care was left to Jose and me. I cooked, Jose cleaned, I dressed Fernando, Jose put him to bed. This is a great way to figure out the “bones” (i.e. structure) of your essay. A rectangular black and red sticker displaying the theme of the 2017 event. For a brief period of time the quality of our lives slowly started to improve as our soon-to-be step-dad became an integral part of our family. He paid attention to the needs of my mom, my brother, and me. But our prosperity was short-lived as my step dad’s chronic alcoholism became more and more recurrent. When I was eight, my younger brother Fernando’s birth complicated things even further. An example of a reflective observation is “I’m hearing that ‘building’ has been pretty important in your life… is that right? ” You’re hunting together for a thematic thread--something that might connect different parts of your life and self. And, as I write these things down, I notice a theme of youth/old age emerging.