Personal Experience Writing For the Standard Grade Folio.

Personal Experience Personal Experience WritingWriting

For the Standard Grade FolioFor the Standard Grade Folio

What is Personal Writing?

In personal experience writing, also called 'personal reflective writing', you:

• describe a personal experience• express your feelings about it • and give your reactions to it.

Is it easy?• Many students think this is the easiest

type of essay to write, but don't be fooled!

• You have to describe the experience you choose in great detail, as well as express your feelings about it in detail too.

• Your reflections after the event are also an important part of this type of essay.

What makes a good essay?

Don’t invent the experience• Never make up an experience! • Markers are good at spotting the difference

between someone who is describing a real event he/she has attended and someone who is making the whole thing up!

• If you have never been on a protest march, you will find it difficult to explain your feelings and reactions to it in a convincing way.


Describe the experience in detail• Tell the reader all about the experience:

– What happened?– How did it start?– Where did it take place? – Who were you with?– What was the atmosphere like?– Did things go according to plan?– How did it end?


Describe the experience in detail• Tell the reader what things looked like and

what sounds you heard. • Use your five senses to describe what you

saw, touched, smelt, heard and tasted. • Use lots of detail - the more detail you use,

the more interesting your writing will be. • In this type of writing, the SQA is looking for

you to show insight.


What does “showing insight” mean?• Showing insight means that you have realised

something, that you have really thought in depth about what the experience has meant to you.

• Writing a sentence like:“I realised very early in our holiday that the beggars who appeared every day did not mean to annoy us – they were just trying to get a few pennies from rich tourists.”shows insight.


Express your feelings about the experience• Tell the reader how you felt - before the

event, during it and afterwards. – Were you nervous, excited or scared? – Were you proud, upset or angry?

• Remember that your readers want to know how you felt.

• Don't forget to include your feelings and reactions throughout your writing - do not add them on at the end in one big section.


Reflect on the experience• This part usually comes at the end of your writing. • You should look back on your experience and

reflect on it (even if it was only a few days ago). • You could explain how you learned something

about yourself from the experience: – perhaps you changed because of it – perhaps your feelings and reactions surprised you. – Reflect on the event - drawing a mind map may help you.

• The SQA is looking for you to show self-awareness.


What is self-awareness?• Self-awareness is the ability to show that you are aware

of your own feelings and reactions and understand why you behaved the way you did.

• For example, writing a sentence like:I know now that I was behaving like a spoilt child, but at the time I felt so betrayed by my mum. After all I was only eight!shows real self-awareness.

• Always try to explain you feelings – show the reader that you have reflected in depth and that you are aware of how and why you behaved as you did.

Anger!Think of a time in your life when you’ve been angry – there might be more than one!– Did someone say something to anger you?– Did someone do something to anger you?– Have you been so angry that you didn’t

think you’d be able to control your temper?

Anger! EssayYou are going to give a personal response to the emotion anger, developing in detail your ideas, views, attitudes towards this very common feeling, saying what angers you.

Anger! EssayPlanning you essay• You will need to plan your essay first.• Draw a Mind-map like the one on the

next slide to brainstorm:– What anger is– What makes you angry– How your anger manifests– How you calm down– Any situations you’ve found yourself in

Anger! EssayEmotion, can be uncontrollable, RAGE

Anger

Essay Introduction• Try to give a definition for the word, anger. Can you

think of any slang terms for it? • Make the point that we all are capable of anger from

the moment we are born - you might want to back up this point, explaining how babies show anger, teenagers, adults, OAPs

• Go on to make the point that anger is all around us in every-day life - give examples of anger from things you have seen - at home, at school, on TV/video, on the road, terraces

• Make sure you make each example you have used come alive by describing it in detail, using the most interesting vocabulary possible

Developing Section• Go on to explain that you yourself have experienced

anger - indicate that in the rest of your essay you intend to explain what makes you angry and why.

• Are you normally the kind of person who flies into a rage?

• Describe in detail four or five examples where you lost your temper. – Use a paragraph for each example so that you

can build it up in detail, explaining how the whole thing came about, why you reacted as you did and how the situation ended. Did your anger help or did it lead to more problems?

Developing Section• You will need to think about the organisation of

your examples. – Perhaps half the essay could look at anger which

made the situation worse and the other half where it helped in some way.

– For each half of the essay you could then subdivide your examples into home, school, friends, outside world (street, terraces, road)

• Make sure each example is interesting and uses the best vocabulary you can to bring it alive. Really get across to the reader just how you felt, what was going through your mind/body

Conclusion• Sum up what you have learned

about anger from your essay.• As well as telling us what you have

learned about yourself

The Beast WithinTo have a fit; to go mad; to become enraged; to go ballistic; to fly off the handle; to go mental; to blow your top; to go crackers; to blow a gasket ... No matter what we call it, all of us have at one time or another experienced the emotion. Anger. Babies when they don't get fed regularly enough scream, kick and wail until they get attention. Teenagers, at the latest injustice perpetrated by uncaring parents who just don't understand, slam doors, stamp upstairs, huff and puff until the feeling subsides. Even pensioners mumble and mutter, their faces red with rage, when upset by the latest cut in their pensions.

The Beast WithinAnger is all around us and it would appear that few of us can escape its clutches. At home, parents shout in a foul temper when children misbehave, become enraged at the most recent telephone bill which drops unexpectedly and uninvited, turn into hurricanes of fury when their favourite television programme is cancelled to make way for the cricket highlights. Teachers explode in a supernova of rage when some piece of homework mysteriously gets eaten by the dog (honest, sir!). Motorists are reduced to slavering wrecks when a red light strikes just as they are about to accelerate through. It would appear that the whole world has gone mad.

The Beast WithinIt will come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that even I have been touched by the raging flames of fury and have come face to face on many occasions with the beast within. No that I would consider myself a particularly angry sort of person who is always flying off the handle. Indeed, there are not many things in life which make me see red. But brothers, for example, never cease to cause my blood to boil. I only have to look at my younger brother to feel my pulse racing and a curious desire comes over me to commit murder. It is probably due to his never- ending nosiness that I always seem to lose my temper.

The Beast WithinJust recently, I arrived home from school exhausted by the trials and tribulations of Standard Grade torture to find him rifling through the cupboard where I keep my pocket money. He claimed he was only looking for the CDs he said he'd lent me months ago, but I could see by the embarrassed look on his face that I'd caught him out. When I get annoyed, I can feel the blood rushing into my face so that I probably resemble a beetroot on fire. My heart pounds faster than engine pistons and my mind goes blank with rage. At times like this I am not responsible for my actions. Indeed, after I had caught him poking his nose where it wasn't wanted, I completely lost the place and started pummelling him and throwing him around the bedroom. Hearing all the commotion upstairs, my mum entered stage left, hauled me off him, blaming me for bullying him and threatening to tell my dad about the disgraceful behaviour of his eldest son. Needless to say the complete injustice of this made me even madder!

The Beast WithinWhen I get annoyed, I can feel the blood rushing into my face so that I probably resemble a beetroot on fire. My heart pounds faster than engine pistons and my mind goes blank with rage. At times like this I am not responsible for my actions. Indeed, after I had caught him poking his nose where it wasn't wanted, I completely lost the place and started pummelling him and throwing him around the bedroom. Hearing all the commotion upstairs, my mum entered stage left, hauled me off him, blaming me for bullying him and threatening to tell my dad about the disgraceful behaviour of his eldest son. Needless to say the complete injustice of this made me even madder!

The Beast WithinParents are really the worst source of anger. I can't stand the way they are always going on about not acting your age and being too immature. For example, I remember something that happened just last year...

Personal Experience Writing For the Standard Grade Folio.

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