how to start a personal recount essay

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How to Write a Personal Recount

Last Updated: January 17, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was reviewed by Gerald Posner . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 128,258 times.

Writing a personal recount requires you to retell an activity or event that happened in your own life. You must structure your story in a way that makes sense while using language that matches the same purpose.

Considerations

• The first thing you need to understand is the writing prompt itself. If your teacher asks you to write about a favorite holiday memory, your recount needs to describe something that happened during a holiday. It should not describe a favorite memory that happened in school, after class on a normal school day, or during a normal weekend.
• Pay attention to requirements concerning length, as well. Your teacher may tell you how many words, pages, or paragraphs your recount needs to be. If these instructions are not included and you aren't sure about how long the piece must be, consider asking your teacher directly.

• Most recounts are meant to inform, entertain, or do some combination of the two. Personal recounts are generally written for entertainment, but if your teacher asks you to describe an event he or she was not present for—like what happened during your last sports game or during a time when a substitute teacher led class—you also need to make sure that you provide plenty of accurate information about that event.

• For classroom purposes, your recount will usually be written for either your teacher or your peers. Your teacher will want to see that you followed the instructions he or she provided. Your classmates will usually want to be entertained with a story they can enjoy or relate to.

• For example, if you need or want to write a personal recount about a fun summer memory, you probably shouldn't write about your best friend moving away. As a sad memory, describing the loss of your friend won't create the “fun” mood your recount is supposed to have.

• Choose something simple. For instance, a recount about your favorite pet might be titled, “My Favorite Pet.”

• Identify the participants. Even though a personal recount must retell a story from your own life, other people will probably be involved in your story, too. Mentioning these individuals early on will prevent the reader from being surprised or confused later.
• Explain when the activity happened and where it happened, as well. These details are crucial if you want your readers to understand the events of your story.
• For example, if you choose to write about a beach vacation spent with your family, consider starting with something like, “I spent the first week of July with my mother, father, sister, Uncle Eric, and Aunt Lydia. We stayed at a hotel on the beach.”

• For instance, if school was canceled for the day because of a major blizzard, you should mention the blizzard first, followed by the discovery that school was canceled. Write about what you did with your day off only after explaining why you had that day off.

• As a general rule, only describe events that the reader would not be able to predict. When writing a personal recount about your weekend, you could describe the games you played, the people you met with, and any special treats you may have enjoyed. You do not need to explain that you went to sleep each night or ate breakfast each morning, however, since those are things your teacher expects you to do every weekend.

• For personal recounts that cover an extended period of time, each paragraph might describe one easily separated portion of that time. A recount about your weekend might include one paragraph for Friday evening, one paragraph for Saturday, and one paragraph for Sunday. A recount about your summer might include one paragraph for May, one paragraph for June, one paragraph for July, and one paragraph for August.

• This is especially important when you are writing a personal recount about someone or something important. Personal recounts about your favorite pet should include a description of how your pet looks. Personal recounts about your grandparents should include descriptions of how your grandparents look and sound.

• Consider including a personal opinion about what happened. For instance, you might say conclude a personal recount about your Christmas with a statement like, “This past Christmas was very fun.”
• You may also need to conclude by describing the outcome of the activity. If you are telling a recount about your visit to the doctor, end with an explanation of what your doctor told you or what medicine he or she gave you. [3] X Research source

• For a personal recount, you need to describe how you felt and what you did. Doing this will be impossible if you do not tell the story from your perspective.

• The words “played,” “raced,” and “painted” describe the actions you and your cousin performed.
• It makes more sense to say that you performed these actions than to describe these events without saying anything about doing them. A description of the park you raced to won't make sense if you don't first explain that you raced to it.

• This means converting all of your verbs to the past tense. Instead of saying that you “enjoy” eating at your favorite restaurant, you will need to write that you “enjoyed” eating at your favorite restaurant.
• For most verbs, you can change them to the past tense by add “-ed” to the end of the verb. Examples include: enjoyed (enjoy), played (play), visited (visit), walked (walk)
• For some verbs, several letters within the word will change and no “-ed” is needed. A few common examples include: ran (run), ate (eat), went (go)

• Transitions describe the order of events. A few examples include: first, next, later, meanwhile, then, finally
• First , I did _________.
• Next , we went to the ______.
• Later , I decided to ______.
• Meanwhile , my parents were ______.
• Then , all of us ______.
• Finally , we ended the day by ______.

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• ↑ https://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Planning-for-my-students-needs/Resources-research-and-professional-support/Features-of-text-forms/Recounts
• ↑ https://www.ziptales.com/pdfs/scripts/write-recount.pdf

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Personal Recount: Using FATS to Develop Dilemmas

• Posted By Randall Chew

Hi everyone, I’m Ms Atifa, an English teacher at Lil’ but Mighty. Have you ever had a tough time in a situation where making a choice seemed impossible? I’m sure that you have, and you might also know that such a situation is called a dilemma.

A dilemma refers to a situation where a difficult choice has to be made, and often, both of the choices carry some form of undesirability. For instance, imagine you and your best friend won tickets to a concert by your favourite artist. When you asked your parents if you could go, they firmly told you that you couldn’t. However, your best friend told you that you could lie to your parents in order to attend the concert without their knowledge. Your mind was fraught with the question: Do you listen to your best friend and tell a lie to your parents, or do you listen to your parents and miss an opportunity of a lifetime?

When writing a Personal Recount essay, you can use this particular literary device to add depth to the incident that you are retelling. In case you have forgotten, let’s briefly recap what a Personal Recount entails. This particular type of essay requires you to recount an incident that you have experienced which is related to the topic. When writing a Personal Recount, you can use the following structure to organise your ideas:

• Introduction – start with an interesting hook to entice your reader
• Background Information – this is where you provide important information that willhelp your reader understand the recounted experience
• Recount • Rising Action – this retells the events the lead to the climax • Climax – this represents the most exciting part • Falling Action – this part recounts the events that resulted from the climax
• Reflections – this last paragraph usually shows what you took away from the recounted experience

The Climax of the Recount would be the most important part of your entire essay. This would be where the writer encounters a problem and displays some form of struggle that needs to be overcome in the Falling Action. Hence, the Climax is a great place for you to introduce a dilemma.

When writing a dilemma, you can use the F.A.T.S. technique, which stands for:

• F acial Expressions

Let’s see how we can apply F.A.T.S. to develop a dilemma according to the following essay question:

Write about a time when you did something just to impress someone which you later regretted. (O Level 2020 Paper 1 Section C)

First, think of a dilemma you would have that is relevant to the topic. To do so, use the 5W1H questions to help you, for example: Who did I want to impress? What did I do to impress him/her? Where did this incident take place? The resulting dilemma could be something like this:

The most popular student in school dares me to steal a book. Do I listen to him or do I refuse?

Then, plan how you can develop the dilemma using F.A.T.S. Take a look at the table below. In the left column are questions for you to consider to help you think of some ideas for each part. On the right are some examples of phrases you can use when describing the above- mentioned dilemma:

The final step is to put everything together. The paragraph should look something like this:

Take note of how the final choice made by the writer relates closely to the question, i.e. since the first part of the question is about doing something to impress someone, the writer makes the final decision to steal the book in order to impress Ben the bully. Remember this when you are crafting your dilemma for the Personal Recount that you are writing.

Now, it’s your turn to try! Using F.A.T.S. , think of a dilemma you would have for the following topic, and how you can apply F.A.T.S. to develop it:

Write about a time when you disappointed someone close to you.

Remember to follow the steps I have outlined above to help you get started. First, think of a dilemma that is related to the question. Use the 5W1H questions to help you brainstorm some ideas, for instance: Who was the person that I disappointed? What action did I do that disappointed this person? When did this take place?

Here is an example of a possible response:

While sitting for my end-of-year examination, I notice my best friend cheating and looking at answers from a slip of paper under the table. Do I tell our teacher about her actions and risk disappointing my beloved friend, or do I keep quiet and carry the burden of ignoring her dishonest actions?

Next, develop the dilemma using F.A.T.S. by using the questions below to help you. Remember to jot down your ideas next to the questions:

Putting everything together, you should have written something like this:

Again, remember to show how the final choice made is closely linked to the question, i.e. the writer makes the final decision to inform the teacher about her friend’s dishonest act and in this way, disappoints her friend who would have expected the writer to cover for her.

Also, notice how S (Speech) is not present in the dilemma. This is because the situation the writer finds herself in (taking an exam) does not lend itself to the use of speech. Hence, whilst using F.A.T.S. will help you to develop your dilemma, you should also take heed to ensure that its usage fits the situation in the recount. If you find yourself being unable to use any part of F.A.T.S. , you can try to describe more of the other parts, like how in the example above I have included more descriptions for A (Actions) and T (Thoughts), to ensure that the dilemma is still well-elaborated.

I hope you give this practice a try, and remember to explore using a dilemma in your Personal Recounts if it is relevant to the topic. Don’t forget to apply the F.A.T.S. technique to develop your dilemmas as well. Happy writing!

ENGLISH COMPOSITION PLAN? WHAT’S THAT?

Good writers plan. They think through what they want to write before they actually write.

Before writing a story, some good writers may write their plans down or draw a mind map.

Sometimes, they SEEM like they are not planning but actually, they already know what is necessary for a good English Composition (due to numerous practice!) and have formed a mental plan in their minds.

It all starts with a plan. With a good plan, half the battle is won before you even start writing.

• Find Out More

In her time teaching, she has incorporated elements of drama into her classes to engage her lower primary students. She tries her best to get to know all of her students and is always keen to find out each of their interests and hobbies. She believes that each student has personalised needs, and aims to make lessons fun and helpful for all of her students.

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5 Easy Recount Writing Lesson Plans students love.

Our students encounter recounts in many shapes and forms.

From factual recounts in the form of newspaper reports, historical documents, and biographies to imaginative A Day in the Life of- type recounts and recounts based on personal experiences, this is a very diverse text type.

 Luckily, despite the wide variety of recount categories, they each share some standard features that, once learned, our students can confidently produce their own versions of the different recount types.

 In this article, we’ll take a whirlwind trip through all the stages our students need to master to produce a well-written recount.

 You’ll take your students from defining a recount’s purpose through its planning and preparation and on to the writing and final editing process.

 So, without more ado, let’s get started on How to Master Recount Writing in a Single Week .

 RECOUNT WRITING LESSON PLANS

Day 1: the purpose of a recount.

 Before students can begin to produce their own recount texts , they’ll need to have a clear grasp in their minds on the exact purpose of that recount is. This is better demonstrated than explained.

 A fun way to demonstrate the purpose of a recount to your class is to play the game Two Truths and a Lie with them.

 To do this, ask the students to think of two fantastic things they have done. They should write these down secretly on a piece of paper.

 Now, ask the students to make up one thing they haven’t done. They should add this to their secret list too.

 The students then jumble up the order and take turns reading their list to the class. The class must attempt to identify the ‘lie’ by taking a vote a class vote.

 Play this game for a few rounds and then explain to the class that they have just been writing recounts; two are factual, and one is fictional. Inform your students that recounts retell experiences or events from the past.

The Types of Recounts

Recounts come in many different forms. Ask your students to identify as many different types of recounts as possible. If the school library is available, perhaps you could challenge them to browse the texts to identify as many distinct types of recounts as possible.

Alternatively, you could provide a selection of different recount texts for the students to sort and categorize in class. Some common recount types include:

●      Diaries

●      Biographies

●      Autobiographies

●      Letters

●      Trip Reports

●      Historical Reports

●      Newspaper Reports

●      Witness Statements

Spend some time discussing the different purposes of the various texts. Relate the purpose to the title of each text. Generally, a recount’s primary focus is encapsulated in the title, e.g. My First Day at College , An Eventful Trip to Madagascar , An Accident on Highway 6 , etc.

To get some practice at writing titles that sum up the main focus, finish today’s session by asking students to write titles for the two truths and one lie they wrote for the activity earlier. They can share and discuss these at the end.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING RECOUNT WRITING

MASTER RECOUNT WRITING  with this complete  EDITABLE UNIT  that ensures your students learn how to retell events with accuracy and energy.   covering  PERSONAL, FACTUAL, LITERARY  and  HISTORICAL RECOUNTS.

Teach your students to write AMAZING RECOUNTS in various styles with this COMPLETE 78 PAGE UNIT . No preparation is required.

Day 2: The Structure of a Recount

Now your students have a clear sense of the purpose of recounts, they’ll need to become thoroughly familiar with the main features and foibles of this text type – and that’s where Day 2 comes in!

Though your students will be aware at this stage that there are many different types of recount, they must understand that a generic structure is underlying all of these.

Essentially, there are four questions that students will need to answer in their recount, no matter what type they’re writing. We can refer to these as The Four Pillars of a Recount . These pillars are:

• Who? Who are the main participants/characters in the recount?
• Where? Where did the events happen?
• When? When did the events happen?
• What? What happened?

One activity that can help get your students to think about these four pillars is organising them into pairs and providing them with some sample texts. They can then work together to identify the answers to the four ‘pillar’ questions. These they can then present to the class.

We can further organize recounts into three main sections:

• The Orientation
• The Conclusion

Writing The Orientation of a Recount

In the orientation or introduction, the student sets the scene for the reader regarding characters, setting, and context. The orientation will provide the reader with all the necessary background details to understand what the recount is about. It answers three of the four pillar questions, e.g., Who? Where? and When ?

Writing The Events within a Recount

In the body paragraphs of a recount, significant events are related in a chronological sequence, that is, in the order they happened. This section, usually the longest of the three sections, answers the fourth pillar question, i.e., why?

Getting students to draw up timelines of recent events in their lives can be a helpful way to illustrate the concept of chronology.

Writing The Conclusion of a Recount

Explain to the students that a recount conclusion comes at the end and usually contains a final evaluative comment on the writer’s thoughts or feelings about the events or experience described. This is where the writer makes any personal comment, opinion, or interpretation of the events.

It can be helpful at this point to ask students to identify where the conclusion begins in several different recount texts by identifying the features of a conclusion as described in the previous paragraph.

You could also encourage the students to write their own brief conclusions for the Two Truths and a Lie paragraphs they wrote in the previous activity, including an evaluative comment on how they think or feel about the event – the two factual ones!

Day 3: The Features of a Recount

So far, our students have been looking at recounts in rather broad strokes. Now, it’s time to drill down in more detail and examine the genre’s specific language features .

Firstly, by its very nature, the events described in a recount have already happened, so the fact that they are written in the past tense should be evident to our students. Once students understand this, it will help them identify the correct verb form for their writing.

To reinforce this, you might give students some photocopies of recounts and ask them to work in small groups to highlight all the verbs in the past tense they can identify.

When writing recounts, verbs are what drive the action. Students should take the time to select the most suitable verb for the job at hand. Thesauruses can be handy tools to help here.

As the students begin to organise the chronology of the events in their recounts, time connectives such as first , then , next, etc., are used to help sequence the text’s body paragraphs.

There are numerous time connectives for students to familiarise themselves with. It’s worth taking the time to brainstorm as many of these as possible, working together as a class. Compile them all into a comprehensive master list of time connectives such as:

•   First
• Finally, etc.

 When the class has done this, they are now perfectly primed to write a paragraph or two relating their experiences from yesterday’s Two Truths and a Lie game in a little more detail and the form of a recount.

 To do this, have the students use the timelines they drew up yesterday and their list of connectives.

 One final language feature for students to consider is their use of nouns. To clarify their writing, students should be as specific as possible when choosing words to identify people, places, times, and events.

 This means opting for proper nouns where at all possible. For example, instead of writing ‘the ocean’, encourage the student to name the ocean, e.g., ‘the Pacific Ocean. Rather than write ‘the girl’, use her name or job title.

 Less obviously, common nouns such as ‘car’ can be replaced by the model (e.g. Ford Focus) and where substitution with particular brand names and models isn’t an option, encourage students to get more specific by adding a few well-chosen adjectives.

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR FREE RECOUNT WRITING PROMPTS

Day 4: Planning and Preparation

The purpose, structure, and features of the recount are securely in the bag; it’s time for students to plan and prepare to write their own.

You could give your students free rein to write a recount on a topic of their choosing. However, restricting their choice in this instance will provide them with one less thing to focus their energies on, leaving the way clear to focus on the writing alone.

Trips are often a rich vein to tap when it comes to recount writing, and in recent times, virtual trips are all the rage due to the worldwide pandemic. You can find a selection of possibilities for virtual trips on this YouTube playlist here: Virtual Field Trips .

Choose a video suited to your class’s age and ability and your preference of video style – some are text-based, and most have voice-overs. You might even be able to create some cross-curricular links by choosing a topic related to your student’s work in the social sciences, geography, etc.

Students should watch the video carefully, taking lots of notes as they do so as these will form the basis of their recount.

To help students plan their writing, encourage them to use a mind map. One way to organize their mind map is to write the topic of the recount in the centre of the page and then create branches to answer the following questions:

• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• Where did it happen?
• Who was involved?
• Why did it happen?
• How did it happen?

When the students have finished their mind maps, ask a few volunteers to share their work and discuss it as a class. A mind map such as this is a fantastic planning tool that will make the writing process much smoother for the student.

 Once students have completed their mind map, they can then organise their information into the structure of a recount using a graphic organiser using the headings of:

 Now, with prep and planning in hand, it’s on to Day 5 on the road to recount mastery!

Day 5: Extended Writing

In today’s lesson, students will get stuck into writing their recounts in earnest. Make sure you have enough time set aside for them to complete their draft. For older or higher-ability students, this might mean completing the writing at home over the weekend.

To get started, have a quick question and answer session to review the features and structure of a recount orally. If time allows, this might take the form of compiling a checklist of recount criteria on the whiteboard that the students can refer to during the writing process.

 Sometimes it’s a good idea to set a specific time or length limit for the recount, particularly if you want to ensure they complete their piece within a single class. For example, you might inform students that they have 40 minutes to finish their recount or that they MUST finish their recount within a single A4 page.

 Remind students to refer to their mind maps, graphic organisers, and criteria checklist as they write their recounts.

 If they finish early, they should check their work for grammar, sentence structure , and punctuation.

Fine Tuning

On completing the activities above, your students should have a firm, comprehensive grasp of the main elements of recount writing.

 Once your students have woven these elements together to create their own recount, some opportunities should be provided to improve their initial draft. This may take the form of teacher feedback or peer assessment.

 Reinforce to your students that writing isn’t a ‘ one and done’ process. Becoming a master of recount writing will require editing and proofreading to become a crucial part of the process.

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Telling the Story of Yourself: 6 Steps to Writing Personal Narratives

Jennifer Xue

Table of Contents

Why do we write personal narratives, 6 guidelines for writing personal narrative essays, inspiring personal narratives, examples of personal narrative essays, tell your story.

First off, you might be wondering: what is a personal narrative? In short, personal narratives are stories we tell about ourselves that focus on our growth, lessons learned, and reflections on our experiences.

From stories about inspirational figures we heard as children to any essay, article, or exercise where we're asked to express opinions on a situation, thing, or individual—personal narratives are everywhere.

According to Psychology Today, personal narratives allow authors to feel and release pains, while savouring moments of strength and resilience. Such emotions provide an avenue for both authors and readers to connect while supporting healing in the process.

That all sounds great. But when it comes to putting the words down on paper, we often end up with a list of experiences and no real structure to tie them together.

In this article, we'll discuss what a personal narrative essay is further, learn the 6 steps to writing one, and look at some examples of great personal narratives.

As readers, we're fascinated by memoirs, autobiographies, and long-form personal narrative articles, as they provide a glimpse into the authors' thought processes, ideas, and feelings. But you don't have to be writing your whole life story to create a personal narrative.

You might be a student writing an admissions essay , or be trying to tell your professional story in a cover letter. Regardless of your purpose, your narrative will focus on personal growth, reflections, and lessons.

Personal narratives help us connect with other people's stories due to their easy-to-digest format and because humans are empathising creatures.

We can better understand how others feel and think when we were told stories that allow us to see the world from their perspectives. The author's "I think" and "I feel" instantaneously become ours, as the brain doesn't know whether what we read is real or imaginary.

In her best-selling book Wired for Story, Lisa Cron explains that the human brain craves tales as it's hard-wired through evolution to learn what happens next. Since the brain doesn't know whether what you are reading is actual or not, we can register the moral of the story cognitively and affectively.

In academia, a narrative essay tells a story which is experiential, anecdotal, or personal. It allows the author to creatively express their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and opinions. Its length can be anywhere from a few paragraphs to hundreds of pages.

Outside of academia, personal narratives are known as a form of journalism or non-fiction works called "narrative journalism." Even highly prestigious publications like the New York Times and Time magazine have sections dedicated to personal narratives. The New Yorke is a magazine dedicated solely to this genre.

The New York Times holds personal narrative essay contests. The winners are selected because they:

had a clear narrative arc with a conflict and a main character who changed in some way. They artfully balanced the action of the story with reflection on what it meant to the writer. They took risks, like including dialogue or playing with punctuation, sentence structure and word choice to develop a strong voice. And, perhaps most important, they focused on a specific moment or theme – a conversation, a trip to the mall, a speech tournament, a hospital visit – instead of trying to sum up the writer’s life in 600 words.

In a nutshell, a personal narrative can cover any reflective and contemplative subject with a strong voice and a unique perspective, including uncommon private values. It's written in first person and the story encompasses a specific moment in time worthy of a discussion.

Writing a personal narrative essay involves both objectivity and subjectivity. You'll need to be objective enough to recognise the importance of an event or a situation to explore and write about. On the other hand, you must be subjective enough to inject private thoughts and feelings to make your point.

With personal narratives, you are both the muse and the creator – you have control over how your story is told. However, like any other type of writing, it comes with guidelines.

1. Write Your Personal Narrative as a Story

As a story, it must include an introduction, characters, plot, setting, climax, anti-climax (if any), and conclusion. Another way to approach it is by structuring it with an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should set the tone, while the body should focus on the key point(s) you want to get across. The conclusion can tell the reader what lessons you have learned from the story you've just told.

2. Give Your Personal Narrative a Clear Purpose

Your narrative essay should reflect your unique perspective on life. This is a lot harder than it sounds. You need to establish your perspective, the key things you want your reader to take away, and your tone of voice. It's a good idea to have a set purpose in mind for the narrative before you start writing.

Let's say you want to write about how you manage depression without taking any medicine. This could go in any number of ways, but isolating a purpose will help you focus your writing and choose which stories to tell. Are you advocating for a holistic approach, or do you want to describe your emotional experience for people thinking of trying it?

Having this focus will allow you to put your own unique take on what you did (and didn't do, if applicable), what changed you, and the lessons learned along the way.

3. Show, Don't Tell

It's a narration, so the narrative should show readers what happened, instead of telling them. As well as being a storyteller, the author should take part as one of the characters. Keep this in mind when writing, as the way you shape your perspective can have a big impact on how your reader sees your overarching plot. Don't slip into just explaining everything that happened because it happened to you. Show your reader with action.

You can check for instances of telling rather than showing with ProWritingAid. For example, instead of:

"You never let me do anything!" I cried disdainfully.

"You never let me do anything!" To this day, my mother swears that the glare I levelled at her as I spat those words out could have soured milk.

Using ProWritingAid will help you find these instances in your manuscript and edit them without spending hours trawling through your work yourself.

4. Use "I," But Don't Overuse It

You, the author, take ownership of the story, so the first person pronoun "I" is used throughout. However, you shouldn't overuse it, as it'd make it sound too self-centred and redundant.

ProWritingAid can also help you here – the Style Report will tell you if you've started too many sentences with "I", and show you how to introduce more variation in your writing.

5. Pay Attention to Tenses

Tense is key to understanding. Personal narratives mostly tell the story of events that happened in the past, so many authors choose to use the past tense. This helps separate out your current, narrating voice and your past self who you are narrating. If you're writing in the present tense, make sure that you keep it consistent throughout.

6. Make Your Conclusion Satisfying

Satisfy your readers by giving them an unforgettable closing scene. The body of the narration should build up the plot to climax. This doesn't have to be something incredible or shocking, just something that helps give an interesting take on your story.

The takeaways or the lessons learned should be written without lecturing. Whenever possible, continue to show rather than tell. Don't say what you learned, narrate what you do differently now. This will help the moral of your story shine through without being too preachy.

GoodReads is a great starting point for selecting read-worthy personal narrative books. Here are five of my favourites.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen, the author of 386 books, wrote this poetic story about a daughter and her father who went owling. Instead of learning about owls, Yolen invites readers to contemplate the meaning of gentleness and hope.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. This Holocaust memoir has a strong message that such horrific events should never be repeated.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

This classic is a must-read by young and old alike. It's a remarkable diary by a 13-year-old Jewish girl who hid inside a secret annexe of an old building during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1942.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

This is a personal narrative written by a brave author renowned for her clarity, passion, and honesty. Didion shares how in December 2003, she lost her husband of 40 years to a massive heart attack and dealt with the acute illness of her only daughter. She speaks about grief, memories, illness, and hope.

Educated by Tara Westover

Author Tara Westover was raised by survivalist parents. She didn't go to school until 17 years of age, which later took her to Harvard and Cambridge. It's a story about the struggle for quest for knowledge and self-reinvention.

Narrative and personal narrative journalism are gaining more popularity these days. You can find distinguished personal narratives all over the web.

Curating the best of the best of personal narratives and narrative essays from all over the web. Some are award-winning articles.

Narratively

Long-form writing to celebrate humanity through storytelling. It publishes personal narrative essays written to provoke, inspire, and reflect, touching lesser-known and overlooked subjects.

Narrative Magazine

It publishes non,fiction narratives, poetry, and fiction. Among its contributors is Frank Conroy, the author of Stop-Time , a memoir that has never been out of print since 1967.

Thought Catalog

Aimed at Generation Z, it publishes personal narrative essays on self-improvement, family, friendship, romance, and others.

Personal narratives will continue to be popular as our brains are wired for stories. We love reading about others and telling stories of ourselves, as they bring satisfaction and a better understanding of the world around us.

Personal narratives make us better humans. Enjoy telling yours!

Write like a bestselling author

Love writing? ProWritingAid will help you improve the style, strength, and clarity of your stories.

Jennifer Xue is an award-winning e-book author with 2,500+ articles and 100+ e-books/reports published under her belt. She also taught 50+ college-level essay and paper writing classes. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Business.com, Business2Community, Addicted2Success, Good Men Project, and others. Her blog is JenniferXue.com. Follow her on Twitter @jenxuewrites].

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• Aug 4, 2021

The Correct Techniques for Writing a Personal Recount Composition

Personal recount compositions depend on these factors.

Creativity and Style - Your ingenuity in building up a story that seems Original. (it may not be)

- And the way you interpret the Key Words.

Why do I think these are important?

1. For a personal recount essay, you really need to do STORYTELLING. The story must capture the imagination of the reader. I will share some tips below about how you can do this.

2. You need to think out of the box. Please reject those hackneyed plots. Examiners have seen too many of those. If you do want to use a common idea, make sure that you infuse it with some style. And that brings me to the next point.

3. Style is everything. You can use it to dress up an old story. You can create humour or you can make it nostalgic. Everything depends on your approach. The entire story can come to life and project different messages depending on your style.

4. The keywords are an indication of the path you should take. The question wants you to only use the ideas from the keywords and you need to expand it so that you may extract some points from it.

Let me expand on these ways of building up a composition that is attractive and follows the keywords stated in the question.

STORYTELLING

I mentioned that this is an important technique. What is that?

It is the ability to tell a story from the source point to the end. The ending should be a revelation of how the story projects morals or values. There should be wisdom to impart at the end and the way you perceive that you have changed. Of course, storytelling works best in personal recount, narrative and reflective essays. It is important to note that every composition tells a story and it is usually based on ‘you.’ You will reflect the way the wisdom is gleaned at the end.

In order to do this, you will need to start from the point where it all started. In other words, you will trace the story to the point when the entire pattern of trouble began. And the story should wind its way towards the end where the sole purpose of having told that story is revealed. It is to show that you had surpassed those obstacles to become the wiser young man or woman that you are today.

That is the entire purpose of storytelling.

THINKING OUT OF THE BOX

Why do you do this and more importantly, HOW?

i) You need to do this as your composition will be lacking in ideas and your organisation will be ineffectual. There will not be much to organise if your story does not have enough ideas.

Ideas are like the arteries in your story. The flow of ideas will reflect how appealing your story is.

How do you actually think out of the box?

There are a few ways of doing this.

Firstly, you may turn to many sources for your story. It is rather easy. Just turn to news articles, stories from books, or even tv stories. Then try to blend it in a way that it reflects the main purpose of the question.

Secondly, you may do this by thinking of something new on your own. You may be inventive. Of course, you may choose to combine a new idea with an old one.

You may even pick a theme from a popular movie. Just make sure that it relates to the question.

Take your pick. You decide which way the story will flow.

The style you choose to use is up to you. You will need to decide if you want to project it as something whimsical, moralistic or something verging on fantasy.

Always try to inject it with your own opinions. The way you narrate is important as it reflects your style. Feel free to offer your opinions. Be subjective and dare to drift from the way you have always written.

These are the bread and butter of your essay. If you did not examine the keywords, then you will probably get it wrong.

The keywords are like the guiding light. They ‘signal’ you and tell you where to go.

You will need to understand what it means and expand it. Once you have got the big picture, you may start writing your PEEL. All PEELs are related to keywords.

Once you follow this pattern of writing, your essay will be precise.

These are the tips for today and I hope you will use them well when writing a Personal Recount composition.

Following all 4 tips will certainly ensure that your composition will reach a much higher standard for your exams.

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How to Write the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:.

• What is the Overcoming Challenges Essay?
• Real Overcoming Challenges Essay Prompts
• How to Choose a Topic
• Writing Tips

Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

While any college essay can be intimidating, the Overcoming Challenges prompt often worries students the most. Those students who’ve been lucky enough not to experience trauma tend to assume they have nothing worth saying. On the other hand, students who’ve overcome larger obstacles may be hesitant to talk about them.

Regardless of your particular circumstances, there are steps you can take to make the essay writing process simpler. Here are our top tips for writing the overcoming challenges essay successfully.

What is the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay?

The overcoming challenges prompt shows up frequently in both main application essays (like the Common App) and supplemental essays. Because supplemental essays allow students to provide schools with additional information, applicants should be sure that the subject matter they choose to write about differs from what’s in their main essay.

Students often assume the overcoming challenges essay requires them to detail past traumas. While you can certainly write about an experience that’s had a profound effect on your life, it’s important to remember that colleges aren’t evaluating students based on the seriousness of the obstacle they overcame.

On the contrary, the goal of this essay is to show admissions officers that you have the intelligence and fortitude to handle any challenges that come your way. After all, college serves as an introduction to adult life, and schools want to know that the students they admit are up to the task. 

Real “Overcoming Challenges” Essay Prompts

To help you understand what the “Overcoming Challenges” essay looks like, here are a couple sample prompts.

Currently, the Common Application asks students to answer the following prompt in 650 words or less:

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

For the past several years, MIT has prompted students to write 200 to 250 words on the following:

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In both cases, the prompts explicitly ask for your response to the challenge. The event itself isn’t as important as how it pushed you to grow.

How to Choose a Topic for an Essay on Overcoming Challenges

When it comes to finding the best topic for your overcoming challenges essays, there’s no right answer. The word “challenge” is ambiguous and could be used to reference a wide range of situations from prevailing over a bully to getting over your lifelong stage fright to appear in a school musical. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when selecting an essay subject.

1. Avoid trivial or common topics

While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules for choosing an essay topic, students should avoid overdone topics.

These include:

• Working hard in a challenging class
• Overcoming a sports injury
• Moving schools or immigrating to the US
• Tragedy (divorce, death, abuse)

Admissions officers have read numerous essays on the subject, so it’s harder for you to stand out (see our full list of cliché college essay topics to avoid ). If events like these were truly formative to you, you can still choose to write about them, but you’ll need to be as personal as possible. 

It’s also ideal if you have a less traditional storyline for a cliché topic; for example, if your sports injury led you to discover a new passion, that would be a more unique story than detailing how you overcame your injury and got back in the game.

Similarly, students may not want to write about an obstacle that admissions committees could perceive as low stakes, such as getting a B on a test, or getting into a small fight with a friend. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how you respond to adversity, so the topic you pick should’ve been at least impactful on your personal growth.

2. Pick challenges that demonstrate qualities you want to highlight

Students often mistakenly assume they need to have experienced exceptional circumstances like poverty, an abusive parent, or cancer to write a good essay. The truth is that the best topics will allow you to highlight specific personal qualities and share more about who you are. The essay should be less about the challenge itself, and more about how you responded to it.

Ask yourself what personality traits you want to emphasize, and see what’s missing in your application. Maybe you want to highlight your adaptability, for example, but that isn’t clearly expressed in your application. In this case, you might write about a challenge that put your adaptability to the test, or shaped you to become more adaptable.

Here are some examples of good topics we’ve seen over the years:

• Not having a coach for a sports team and becoming one yourself
• Helping a parent through a serious health issue
• Trying to get the school track dedicated to a coach
• Having to switch your Model UN position last-minute

Tips for Writing an Essay About Overcoming Challenges

Once you’ve selected a topic for your essays, it’s time to sit down and write. For best results, make sure your essay focuses on your efforts to tackle an obstacle rather than the problem itself. Additionally, you could avoid essay writing pitfalls by doing the following:

1. Choose an original essay structure

If you want your overcoming challenges essay to attract attention, aim to break away from more traditional structures. Most of these essays start by describing an unsuccessful attempt at a goal and then explain the steps the writer took to master the challenge. 

You can stand out by choosing a challenge you’re still working on overcoming, or focus on a mental or emotional challenge that spans multiple activities or events. For example, you might discuss your fear of public speaking and how that impacted your ability to coach your brother’s Little League team and run for Student Council. 

You can also choose a challenge that can be narrated in the moment, such as being put on the spot to teach a yoga class. These challenges can make particularly engaging essays, as you get to experience the writer’s thoughts and emotions as they unfold.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have succeeded in your goal for this essay. Maybe you ran for an election and lost, or maybe you proposed a measure to the school board that wasn’t passed. It’s still possible to write a strong essay about topics like these as long as you focus on your personal growth. In fact, these may make for even stronger essays since they are more unconventional topics.

2. Focus on the internal

When writing about past experiences, you may be tempted to spend too much time describing specific people and events. With an Overcoming Challenges essay though, the goal is to focus on your thoughts and feelings.

For example, rather than detail all the steps you took to become a better public speaker, use the majority of your essay to describe your mental state as you embarked on the journey to achieving your goals. Were you excited, scared, anxious, or hopeful? Don’t be afraid to let the reader in on your innermost emotions and thoughts during this process.

3. Share what you learned 

An Overcoming Challenges essay should leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you learned on your journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. There’s no need to explicitly say “this experience taught me X,” but your essay should at least implicitly share any lessons you learned. This can be done through your actions and in-the-moment reflections. Remember that the goal is to show admissions committees why your experiences make you a great candidate for admission. 

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the g arb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essay Edited

The Overcoming Challenges essay is one of the trickier supplemental prompts, so it’s important to get feedback on your drafts. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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The Learning Space

O’levels Paper 1: Continuous Writing (Sample Narrative / Personal Recount Essay)

O’levels Paper 1 Student’s Model Essay:

Question: Write about an occasion when an inconsiderate act leads to drastic consequences

“Bang, bang, bang, buzzzzz,” the sound of the relentless pounding of the drill reverberated throughout the walls of my flat. The cacophonous sound had jolted me from my deep slumber. Bleary-eyed, I dragged myself towards the main door, hoping to find out who or what is causing such a din.

I opened my door and was livid to find that the entire common corridor has been filled with tools, wooden planks, stacks of old newspaper and old furniture. A long extension ladder was also placed against the parapet. It turns out that my new neighbour Dashen has been using the common corridor like his own workshop.

“Oh my gosh! Can you please STOP?!” I yelled, my voice shooting up 50 octaves, my eyes flashing angrily.

“Why are you making so much noise so early in the morning? Don’t you know you cannot block the common corridor? You are obstructing everyone. This is very inconsiderate!” I hollered again. Rage gripping me and anger flooding through my veins.

Dashen darted me a baleful look, flicked his cigarette, turned his head, walked back into his flat, ignoring me completely.

At this point, I could feel a vein popped out in my neck, my jaw thrust forward with indignation. I stomped back to my room to put on some proper clothing so that I can confront him.

Suddenly, an acrid smell hit my nostrils. It was smoky campfire-ish smell. I raced to the front door only to find thick gray smoke billowing in. Like a monstrous beast, it wolfed everything in its way. Nothing was spared. Flames ripped across the ceiling as if they had been shot from a flamethrower. At the corner of my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a burning cigarette that landed on the pile of newspaper.

Immediately, everything clicked.

Our inconsiderate new neighbour, Dashen, must have flung his cigarette onto the newspapers that he had left outside. The cigarette must have stabbed into a tottering stack of cardboard boxes intermixed with old newspapers and an old cabinet that was missing a leg. The suffocating smoke jolted me to my senses. I quickly reached for my phone and dialled 995. As I put down the phone, a thought struck me like lightning. Oh no! I have to alert Auntie Wong, our recently widowed, octogenarian neighbour who is living alone. I knocked furiously and frantically at her door. Just as I thought, she was home and had just woken up too.

“We have to get out of here! There is a fire!” I bellowed. Mrs Wong was hyperventilating. I took her hand and helped her out of her flat. There was choking smoke, so black and thick that it seemed you could grab it by the handful. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard a lot sound. Crack! Thud! The ladder that Dashen left outside the corridor had fallen, landing on Mrs Wong’s left leg. Gasping for breath, I mustered all my strength and pushed the ladder away, almost tripping over the debris. I picked the frail Mrs Wong up and carried her down the stairs. Just as we were able to go down the stairs, a loud boom echoed behind me and we were hurled forward. At this point, the firemen had arrived and managed to bring the both of us to safety.

After battling with the fire for close to four hours, the fire was finally extinguished. The police had also arrived and told us that there some flammable substances such as cleaning agents and electronic items in the old cabinet that Dashen had left outside the corridor. Dashen was also questioned by the authorities and the police took him away to assist with further investigation.

Dashen’s terribly selfish, horribly reckless act endangered everyone. Lives could have been lost because of such thoughtless act and careless oversights. Dashen’s inconsiderate act has started a disastrous fire which took have taken a heavy toll on innocent lives.

What exactly do examiners look for in a well written narrative or personal recount essay?

Content: Students need a well-organized story will have all three parts, and the ideas will be presented in a clear and logical way. Your story must be credible and not too far-fetched.

Language: To get The paragraphs will be set appropriately, with colons and semicolons used as they should, and the ideas presented should be easy to connect and understand, making it a smooth read for the reader.

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Reflecting on Sudan’s Civil War One Year Later

Amel Marhoum works for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Before the war transformed Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, into a battlefield she lived there with her family. Starting on April 15, 2023, during the last days of Ramadan, heavy gunfire and shelling trapped countless families, including her own, in their homes with dwindling supplies of food and water. A year later, every segment of Sudan’s population, from pastoralists in rural areas to the country’s once thriving urban middle-class have been impacted. This is Amel’s reflection on how the war has changed her, her country, and her work.

Before the fighting truly began, there were indications in Sudan that a minor conflict was brewing, but not a full-fledged war.   I still feel like it is a dream—or more-so a nightmare. I keep thinking tomorrow I’ll wake up and things will be fine. But things are not fine. 

April 14, 2023  felt like a normal Ramadan night. We had our  suhoor   (early morning meal before sunrise)   and hours later the war erupted. That Saturday morning, April 15,  I was sleeping, which tells you just how peaceful and calm the day started out.

I was not prepared for what happened next. The sudden sounds of heavy artillery, airstrikes, and shelling were unimaginable. I had never heard sounds like this in my life.

As a Liaison Officer at UNHCR, I’m the kind of person who’s quick to react and take action. I could make only a few phone calls to relatives, friends, and colleagues before there was no connection. This was one of the big challenges at the time—not knowing what was happening to people. Equally challenging was helping colleagues find cash, fuel, and buses so they could leave Khartoum. I even remember thinking how much of a miracle it was when the UN convoy arrived at the city of Port Sudan on April 24. People were scrambling to leave any way they could.

A week later, as the most senior national staff member, I was put in charge of UNHCR’s office in Sudan. The phone didn’t stop ringing. We were a team of six, and our role was to help our staff and refugees move out of hotspots to safer zones—a difficult task because, in our area, the shelling was very heavy. My colleagues were terrified. Some needed money to movetheir children to safety, and some were stuck in areas where we couldn’t reach them. Every day, we would wake up and find that our neighbors’ houses were gone, and people were dead. 

I thought the fighting would last for a week or two, a month maximum, if it even dragged on in the first place. But then there was no food or water, and we were seeing more soldiers in the streets. We reached a point during the fourth week when we really had to leave—and fast.

Read More: Sudan’s Dangerous Descent Into Warlordism

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On the road to Madani, 85 miles southeast of Khartoum, I saw only destruction and death. I can never forget this—it’s like a horror film, but it’s one you can’t switch off. At one point, where we were held at gunpoint, saying our last prayers. But then the soldiers let us go.

On our journey, we reached the house of a family. We didn’t know them, and they didn’t know us. They insisted we stay with them—they brought us food and made the beds for us. In their house was the first time I felt at peace enough to sleep properly.

I set up the UNHCR office in Madani in early May, and then moved to Port Sudan a month later to establish [another]. Later I moved to Ethiopia to support UNHCR teams on the border with Sudan to receive arriving refugees. 

The lives of Sudanese refugees in the countries they’ve fled to are very tough now. Some of us have left without documents. We are without a home, and some have been left with nothing. But as long as there are people who, despite their own worries, are willing to accept us, there is hope. I saw this generosity with the Ethiopian people – their willingness to accommodate Sudanese refugees, despite their own challenges. They opened their borders and accepted us. But it also requires the support of the whole international community and us humanitarian workers. 

I feel I have aged so much this past year. This experience has changed all of us in Sudan. But I still have hope and confidence—in myself, in my family, in my team, in my work, and above all, in my country. 

Sudan is a country that has tremendous resources. I believe this generation and future generations can perform miracles with the right support. 

We can rise again and become better than when we started. This is what keeps me going. — As told to Sara Bedri

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Guest Essay

Elite College Admissions Have Turned Students Into Brands

By Sarah Bernstein

Ms. Bernstein is a playwright, a writing coach and an essayist in Brooklyn.

“I just can’t think of anything,” my student said.

After 10 years of teaching college essay writing, I was familiar with this reply. For some reason, when you’re asked to recount an important experience from your life, it is common to forget everything that has ever happened to you. It’s a long-form version of the anxiety that takes hold at a corporate retreat when you’re invited to say “one interesting thing about yourself,” and you suddenly believe that you are the most boring person in the entire world. Once during a version of this icebreaker, a man volunteered that he had only one kidney, and I remember feeling incredibly jealous of him.

I tried to jog this student’s memory. What about his love of music? Or his experience learning English? Or that time on a summer camping trip when he and his friends had nearly drowned? “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “That all seems kind of cliché.”

Applying to college has always been about standing out. When I teach college essay workshops and coach applicants one on one, I see my role as helping students to capture their voice and their way of processing the world, things that are, by definition, unique to each individual. Still, many of my students (and their parents) worry that as getting into college becomes increasingly competitive, this won’t be enough to set them apart.

Their anxiety is understandable. On Thursday, in a tradition known as “Ivy Day,” all eight Ivy League schools released their regular admission decisions. Top colleges often issue statements about how impressive (and competitive) their applicant pools were this cycle. The intention is to flatter accepted students and assuage rejected ones, but for those who have not yet applied to college, these statements reinforce the fear that there is an ever-expanding cohort of applicants with straight A’s and perfect SATs and harrowing camping trip stories all competing with one another for a vanishingly small number of spots.

This scarcity has led to a boom in the college consulting industry, now estimated to be a $2.9 billion business. In recent years, many of these advisers and companies have begun to promote the idea of personal branding — a way for teenagers to distinguish themselves by becoming as clear and memorable as a good tagline.

While this approach often leads to a strong application, students who brand themselves too early or too definitively risk missing out on the kind of exploration that will prepare them for adult life.

Like a corporate brand, the personal brand is meant to distill everything you stand for (honesty, integrity, high quality, low prices) into a cohesive identity that can be grasped at a glance. On its website, a college prep and advising company called Dallas Admissions explains the benefits of branding this way: “Each person is complex, yet admissions officers only have a small amount of time to spend learning about each prospective student. The smart student boils down key aspects of himself or herself into their personal ‘brand’ and sells that to the college admissions officer.”

Identifying the key aspects of yourself may seem like a lifelong project, but unfortunately, college applicants don’t have that kind of time. Online, there are dozens of lesson plans and seminars promising to walk students through the process of branding themselves in five to 10 easy steps. The majority begin with questions I would have found panic-inducing as a teenager, such as, “What is the story you want people to tell about you when you’re not in the room?”

Where I hoped others would describe me as “normal” or, in my wildest dreams, “cool,” today’s teenagers are expected to leave this exercise with labels like, Committed Athlete and Compassionate Leader or Environmentally Conscious Musician. Once students have a draft of their ideal self, they’re offered instructions for manifesting it (or at least, the appearance of it) in person and online. These range from common-sense tips (not posting illegal activity on social media) to more drastic recommendations (getting different friends).

It’s not just that these courses cut corners on self-discovery; it’s that they get the process backward. A personal brand is effective only if you can support it with action, so instead of finding their passion and values through experience, students are encouraged to select a passion as early as possible and then rack up the experience to substantiate it. Many college consultants suggest beginning to align your activities with your college ambitions by ninth grade, while the National Institute of Certified College Planners recommends students “talk with parents, guardians, and/or an academic adviser to create a clear plan for your education and career-related goals” in junior high.

The idea of a group of middle schoolers soberly mapping out their careers is both comical and depressing, but when I read student essays today, I can see that this advice is getting through. Over the past few years, I have been struck by how many high school seniors already have defined career goals as well as a C.V. of relevant extracurriculars to go with them. This widens the gap between wealthy students and those who lack the resources to secure a fancy research gig or start their own small business. (A shocking number of college applicants claim to have started a small business.) It also puts pressure on all students to define themselves at a moment when they are anxious to fit in and yet changing all the time.

In the world of branding, a word that appears again and again is “consistency.” If you are Charmin, that makes sense. People opening a roll of toilet paper do not want to be surprised. If you are a teenage human being, however, that is an unreasonable expectation. Changing one’s interests, opinions and presentation is a natural part of adolescence and an instructive one. I find that my students with scattershot résumés are often the most confident. They’re not afraid to push back against suggestions that ring false and will insist on revising their essay until it actually “feels like me.” On the other hand, many of my most accomplished students are so quick to accept feedback that I am wary of offering it, lest I become one more adult trying to shape them into an admission-worthy ideal.

I understand that for parents, prioritizing exploration can feel like a risky bet. Self-insight is hard to quantify and to communicate in a college application. When it comes to building a life, however, this kind of knowledge has more value than any accolade, and it cannot be generated through a brainstorming exercise in a six-step personal branding course online. To equip kids for the world, we need to provide them not just with opportunities for achievement, but with opportunities to fail, to learn, to wander and to change their minds.

In some ways, the college essay is a microcosm of modern adolescence. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either a forum for self-discovery or a high-stakes test you need to ace. I try to assure my students that it is the former. I tell them that it’s a chance to take stock of everything you’ve experienced and learned over the past 18 years and everything you have to offer as a result.

That can be a profound process. But to embark on it, students have to believe that colleges really want to see the person behind the brand. And they have to have the chance to know who that person is.

Sarah Bernstein is a playwright, a writing coach and an essayist.

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