A specific type of genre that is rarely used, yet can have a
large impact on one’s life is a personal statement for a college application. This
is arguably the most important part of the application, as it’s the narrator’s
only chance to show who they are other than their grades, test scores,
volunteer/work experience, and resumes. Personal statements give a better understanding
of who you are and often can be the deciding factor for admission.
In most genres, its key to know your audience, that way you
can adjust your writing to fit that specific genre, but one of the most
difficult parts about writing a personal statement is that you don’t know who
you are writing to. Your intended audience is a group of strangers that are ultimately
playing a part in making a huge decision on behalf of your future. Your goal is
to express as much you as possible, so they gain insight to who you are and if
you would be a good fit for their college. Although each person gets to pick
their specific topic and personalize their paper, the writing should be formal and
knowledgeable. Many personal statements are reflective of past experiences and
share a personal story. They may express a significant experience that had an
impact on them, a unique quality or task they have, a moment of personal
growth, or any event that has shaped them into the person they are. As each
writer fights to stand out or leave an impression, they do their best to be
themselves and keep the readers interested.
The purpose of writing a personal statement for a college
application is rather straightforward, as it’s goal is to show who they are as
a person and hopefully persuade the readers to accept their application and
admit them into the college they’re applying to. A common appeal is using
pathos, an appeal to emotion, where the writer convinces or captivates its audience
by creating an emotional response. As one of the worst things you can do is
bore the person reading your application, it’s important to make yourself
memorable, whether its by tugging at the heart or telling a simple story from a
different or creative angle.
A unique thing about personal statements, is that they vary
drastically from person to person. As everyone lives a different life and has experienced
many different things, the amount of different topics to chose from seems to be
nearly infinite. As each person writes of their own experiences, the tone of a
personal statement can take many different shapes. For example, a person
writing about coping with having divorced parents may have a depressed tone,
where a person writing about their passion for a sport may have a more cheerful
tone.
Personally, I think the most fascinating part about the personal
statement genre is the freedom that you are granted when writing one. There are
few rules when it comes to writing personal statements, which really allows
each person to explore their creativity and express themselves to their fullest
extent.
Jessica Reyes,
ReplyDeleteGood job on PB1A! Personal statement is a special type of textual genres. You analyze it through audience and purpose. Like you wrote, personal statement is rarely used, but we are very familiar with it. I agree with what you said that knowing your audience is especially important, because personal statement is the only chance of show who you are to admission officers and thus the goal is to express more of yourself. You also mentioned a uniqueness of personal statement, which I believe is very important, that it varies from person to person as everyone lives a different life, so when writing a personal statement, writer has total freedom of what to write and how to organize the whole essay.
Zhicheng
J-Rey,
ReplyDeleteI passed along this information to another student who chose personal statements as their genre: Context can shift depending on what school the student is applying to—is it possible that the same essay to school #1 and school #2 could be perceived differently? Although the focus is on you, the student, they can be individually tailored to schools depending upon their identity or mission
I like how you, personally, pinpointed the narrative/storytelling aspect of this genre. Yep, everybody likes a good story, right? And everybody has a story (even if we/they don’t always think of it as such). Why tell a story? Well, we’re impacted by events and experiences that shape us—and these college (and their representatives, really) want to get a sense for what formative experiences helped to shape you. They’re looking for high-quality character, right?
I agree with you that there’s some wiggle room where student-writers can “go for it” a bit and use their creativity to their advantage.
Some other aspects to consider are the length of the piece, which could be considered a constraint (you’ve gotta pack so much into 1 page). Another apect is the amount of revision and editing that takes place for this genre—since it’s super duuuuuuper high stakes, chance are, it’s probably getting read and re-read dozens of times by you, your teachers, your folks/caretakers, etc.
Nice work, J-Rey. In the future, you can make this even better by bringing in some textual evidence/support to help strengthen your claims.
Z
As a textual genre that a person will probably only write once in their life, it is a very important piece of writing that helps determine acceptance into college. I like how you mentioned how you really don’t know whom the audience exactly is, and you have to make your self stand out and let the reader know whom you really are. This is an interesting form of textual genre. Other than following the prompt, one is free to write what they want in their own style that will hopefully make a good impression on whomever is reading the letter. Good job.
ReplyDeleteJessica,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the best thing about personal statements is the amount of freedom you have while producing one. While reading what you wrote about this genre it really emphasized to me that some topics really do use a mixture of 1st and 2nd order thinking as we learned in class. I also really liked how you emphasized that these conventions are exactly that, conventions, and every personal statement will be different but in the end they will all be a personal statement. It was interesting how you mentioned that although in most genres you know the audience you are writing for, in this genre, you have no idea who will be reading your work.
Good job!
Junior