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Gathering Information and Developing a Theme After you've completing your brainstorming, you'll want to filter the fruits of your brainstorming and identify ONE area you wish to pursue in more detail. Look for areas that might seem interesting or different to a reader. A good way to do this is to group similar ideas together to highlight patterns; these patterns can then uncover a potential theme for your essay. (Your essay's theme is its controlling idea.) For example, if after brainstorming and grouping your ideas, you find that your talent for writing shows up in your hobby as a budding novelist, your community service as a teacher of creative writing to youngsters, your extracurricular work as a writer for the school newspaper, and your award for outstanding history essay, then you should consider focusing your essay around this talent and how this interest in writing shapes your place in the world and your goals. Remember--it is the quality of your experience as you describe it that matters, not the number of experiences.
STEP ONE Begin to focus your thoughts by examining your actual experiences. Use the information you've uncovered through brainstorming to address the following topics. • An achievement that made me feel terrific... • Something I have struggled to overcome or change about myself or my life... • An event or experience that taught me something special... • A "real drag" of an experience that I had to get past... • Someone's act of strength or courage that affected me... • A family experience that influenced me in some powerful way... • A lesson, class project, activity or job that had an impact on my academic or career goals... • A time I blew it, failed, made bad choices, and how I got past it... • Some memorable event or advice involving an older person... • An event that helps to define me, in terms of my background... STEP TWO Choose one or two of your favorite respones from the list above (or combine a couple that evoked similar responses). Check to make sure your written description addresses the following three questions. If it doesn't, add details so that the experience you describe will be vivid to a reader who doesn't know you. 1. What were the key moments and details of the event? 2. What did I learn from this event? 3. What aspect of this event stays with me most? STEP THREE Decide on a theme for your essay. Taking the experience you wrote about in Step Two, answer the following questions: •What does this event reveal about me? •What makes it special or significant? •How does this event make me special or make me stand out? • What truth about me is revealed through this event? Your answers will reveal your theme. Back to Getting Started |
