You will be asked to write five or six Personal Essays based on our assigned readings or other issues that have come up in class. The prompts for these essays will appear on our Class Schedule.

The most important aspect of a Personal Essay is that it be personal, and that it uniquely reflects your own experiences, background, and beliefs. Given that focus please do not use automated writing / AI tools like Gemini, CoPilot, ChatGPT, Grammarly, Claude, Jasper, DeepSeek, etc. at any point in developing your essays. Do not use them for brainstorming ideas, do not use them for notes and outlining, do not use them for writing, and do not use them for polishing or correcting your work. I am truly interested in your own thoughts expressed in your own words using your own unique voice and these tools obscure or eliminate that. If you need help with any aspect of your notes, outline, or essay writing, I urge you to consult with the UMD Writer's Workshop for high quality human assistance. 

Each Personal Essay should be developed and written completely within a single Google Doc. Your Google Doc should start with the preparation you do before actually writing your Personal Essay. This will include preparing notes from our source materials, and then organizing those into an outline that will make sure you are addressing all the elements of our essay prompt. Make sure you finish your notes before you start writing your outline, and then finish your outline before starting your Personal Essay. Do not start your notes, outline, or essay somewhere else and then copy and paste them into your Google Doc. 

Each Personal Essay should be at least 500 words long. Given this brief length, please do not include a summarizing introductory or concluding paragraph in your essay.  

If you would like to use a spelling or grammar checker, please do not use AI for this (it's overkill and incredibly wasteful). You should instead use the spelling and grammar checker available in Google Docs. Please do not use any other automated tools in preparing your notes, outline, or essay.

You will turn in the URL for your Google Doc to Canvas. Please make sure that you have the file permissions set on your essay to allow anyone with the link to edit. This lets me see your version history which shows me the steps you followed from the start of your notes to the completion of your essay. 

Personal Essays will be graded on a 5 point scale, where one point is awarded for each of the following : 

1. Your essay is personal, and could really have only been written by you.  

2. Your essay is engaging, and not boring to read. If you are bored when writing the essay, it will be boring to read, so please find a direction for your essay that is interesting for you to reflect on and write about.  

3. Your essay follows the guidelines described above and is focused on the given prompt. 

4. Your essay is specific and does not rely on being vague or using a lot of generic content. It reaches our 500 word minimum without padding or repetition.

5. Your essay is relatively clear and easy to read. This does not mean perfect, just that it is understandable and coherent. 

In addition, each omission of an element from the prompt in your essay will result in a 1 point deduction, as will each instance of a vague or hard to understand response to an element of the prompt. Failure to include notes as described will result in a 1 point deduction and failure to include an outline as described will also result in a 1 point deduction.

Personal Essays submitted or modified 1 - 24 hours after the deadline will automatically lose 1 point (of a possible 5), and will then lose another 1/2 point per full school day they are late. Do not modify your essay after the submission deadline (or it will be considered late based on the date of the most recent edit).