Diagnostic: Writer Identity Narrative

Purpose: This essay will help me get to know your experiences with writing as well as get a
sense of how you write: what your strengths are and what we need to work on this quarter.
Therefore it is important that this essay represents your most sophisticated, nuanced, and
engaging writing.
Assignment: Write a narrative, reflective essay that explores your identitywho you are or are
notas a writer. I recommend brainstorming a list of words you associate with your own
writing process (i.e. chaotic, tidy, stream of consciousness, requirement, cathartic, intimidating,
utilitarian), and then determine which experience that influenced that perception youd like to
write about.
Ive seen students interpret this assignment in so many ways: composing love letters to writing,
telling the ghost stories of experiences from elementary school that still haunt them, reflecting
of how they keep journals or blogs, or write product reviews, or use writing to ideate or
understand or cope.
Audience: Your instructor; readers of The New York Times: a smart, engaged audience
interested in a good story that speaks to something you believe in and informs the ways you
exist in this world
Structure: This essay should intertwine narrative and reflective elements, describing your past
experiences and examining their effects on you and your writing.
Begin a new paragraph for every new topic. Your essay must include at least three well-developed
paragraphs.
Style: The essay should be vivid and detailed. Use the most sophisticated sentence structure
and unexpected word choice you can.
Guidelines: 2 pages (times new roman, double-spaced)
Due: Tuesday, February 23rd