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Writing from the Self

All the course pages specific to Writing from the Self are shown below.

Also please review the Contributor Code of Conduct, the Privacy Guidelines, and the other pages in the Basics menu at the top of this page.

The Skills area (also available via the top menu) offers practical tutorials to help you improve your writing. These pages will be particularly useful during the weeks in which you are working on your projects.

The Readings area contains many examples (written by your instructor and previously published in various places) of writing from the self. A few of these examples are showcased on the resources homepage.

If you have questions, or if you need help, please get in touch.

Writing Project

Writing from the Self

Jan. 5, 2024, 7:58 p.m. • Ross Laird

The three projects in this course are designed to work together. You have a reading project, which is focused on helping to cultivate a lifelong love of reading. You have...


The Art & Craft of the Personal Essay

Building Upon a Storied Tradition

Jan. 5, 2024, 7:49 p.m. • Ross Laird

A personal essay is a non-fiction creative writing essay in which the author utilizes the perspective of personal experience to articulate larger themes (in traditional literary criticism, such the...


Fieldwork

Exploring the World

Jan. 5, 2024, 7:54 p.m. • Ross Laird

Fieldwork is typically a bit different from a field trip , which tends to be focused on education and exposure to educational content in a new environment. Fieldwork, by way of contrast, is not so...