English with Mrs. Lamp

Are your high school juniors and seniors stressing this spring, paralyzed by college application essays and scholarship essay prompts? As an English teacher, I’m often asked for help with these essays, and about ten years ago, my department chair asked me to create a “College and Career” unit to address these skills.

If you teach a business class, a colege readiness class, or any 11th or 12th grade ELA-focused class, you have a unique opportunity to transform a dreaded and confusing task into a high-interest learning experience that serves multiple purposes for your students. By teaching narrative writing skills alongside college essay preparation, you can help students craft compelling personal stories while ALSO strengthening their chances of gaining college acceptance and winning scholarships!

Who wouldn’t want to do this mini-unit? (It’s a crowd favorite with students and parents, too!)

The Dual-Purpose Writing Assignment

College application essays represent a perfect opportunity to teach authentic narrative writing. Unlike standard academic essays, these personal narratives require students to:

• Tell meaningful stories from their lives
• Demonstrate self-reflection and growth
• Show rather than tell their admirable personal qualities
• Create an emotional connection with readers
• Craft concise, impactful prose (typically 200-400 words)

It’s often hard to squeeze in W.3 narrative writing when you’re teaching high school ELA, and I find many teachers don’t do much of it (if they do it at all). However, when you frame personal narrative writing as college essay preparation, this skill set goes from seeming frivolous & getting pushed to the side to seeming VERY real-world significant. Trust me, with a narrative writing unit like this, student engagement skyrockets. Suddenly, the assignment isn’t just about a grade or a random Common Core skill—it’s about their future.

Plus, even non-college bound students will grasp how telling a personal story that highlights their strengths can be a skill that will help them ace job interviews, and everyone can get into telling a personal story that’s meaningful to him or her; storytelling is so deeply ingrained in all of us that everybody in your class can be drawn in by lessons explaining how to tell a better story, self-reflect, and develop a felt connection with the reader!

Why Students Struggle with Personal Writing for Admissions Essays

Many students find personal narratives for college essays challenging. A few reasons for this include…

1. Sharing personal experiences feels risky and vulnerable.
2. They are unsure how to show their good qualities rather than just list them.
3. They aren’t used to writing in a natural voice or a tone that isn’t academic, but still sounds polished.
4. Writer’s block sneaks up on them, and they don’t know what to write about or where to start. They feel they “don’t have any” key experiences that are “good enough” to write about.
5. They aren’t sure what KIND of writing the admissions (or scholarship) people want to see from them; they don’t know how to organize or structure their response.

It can be hard for young people to know where to start with a task like this, but you can help students with this via scaffolded instruction, pro tips, and lots of mentor texts.

Using Mentor Texts

One of the most effective teaching strategies I’ve found for teaching any kind of writing, but especially for personal essays, is analyzing GOOD examples. When students examine well-crafted, emotionally effective college essays, they can better…

• Recognize authentic voice, use of pathos or humor, and conversational (but not too informal) tone
• See how specific details and figurative language can create vivid images & draw readers in
• Understand how vulnerability, honesty, and humility can create a connection the reader feels with the writer
• Learn how to balance honesty and appropriate pathos with positivity and optimism
• Discover effective narrative structures to WOW their readers

High-quality mentor texts will also help you show students that powerful essays don’t necessarily require tragic experiences or extreme hardship. Sometimes, everyday moments can reveal the most about character and values, or humor and a light-hearted approach can create a fun and memorable essay.

My mini-unit has 6 awesome sample essays, with 3 long ones (400 words) and 3 short ones (200 words); this helps kids see that they do NOT have to write a ton to write a good essay, which helps your struggling learners or those with writing skill gaps feel like they can succeed with this assignment, too.

Scaffolding the Writing Process

Students need clear, structured guidance to help them feel confident about approaching the college essay writing process, whether they are on-grade level, advanced, or experiencing skill gaps. If you’re making your own unit, here is what I would advise. (More specific advice and daily lesson plans are included in my “done for you” unit on TPT!)

Day 1: Introduction and Expectations

Begin by discussing what makes personal essays different from academic writing. Show students actual college application prompts, and explain how “show, don’t tell” creates more engaging narratives.

Day 2: Analyzing Mentor Texts

Have students read sample essays and highlight lines that make the writer seem likable, mature, respectable, etc. Discuss specific techniques like sensory details, varied sentence structures, and balanced vulnerability (not relying on pity too much, being honest & not exaggerating, and showing optimism, resilliance, & positivity).

Day 3: Topic Selection and Brainstorming

Guide students through prompt analysis and brainstorming potential topics. Use lists of possible essay topics to spark ideas (this REALLY helps with kids who “don’t know where to start” or “don’t have anything to write about”), and consider having your students share their potential story ideas with 1-2 friends or trusted peers before they start writing (if they want; don’t force it if they feel their topic is too personal/vulnerable).

Days 4-6: Drafting and Revision

Provide structured writing time with targeted mini-lessons on narrative elements like:

• Creating engaging openings
• Using sensory language
• Balancing dialogue and description
• Crafting meaningful conclusions that show growth

I tend to do a 10-minute mini-lesson at the start of each writing day to fill them in on a key tip, trick, or thing to think about as they write, and then give them the rest of the class period to brainstorm, draft, revise, and edit as they are ready for each step.

If you feel 6 days is not enough, you can always extend this unit to 7 or 8 days, or move on in class, but don’t make it due until the 8th day after you started the unit, giving students who need more time the space to finish it at home & still turn it in on time.

Teaching “Show, Don’t Tell”

The cornerstone of effective personal writing is showing qualities through stories rather than stating them directly. Help students understand this difference with examples:

Telling: “I am a determined person who never gives up.”

Showing: “My hands trembled as I knelt on the gravel shoulder, the jack wobbling beneath my car. Cars whizzed by as I struggled with the lug nuts, grease seeping into the cuts on my knuckles. I almost called my dad but instead took a deep breath and continued working until the spare tire clicked into place.”

What if My Students Are Not College-Bound?

Actually, the skills students develop through personal narrative writing extend far beyond college applications! You can explain to everyone that they are building these skills, too:

• Career preparation: Cover letters and interviews often require similar storytelling skills!
• Academic growth: Reflective writing improves critical thinking skills.
• Personal development: Self-reflection builds emotional intelligence and can be deeply personally rewarding.

Tips for Teachers

1. Create a safe environment: Establish clear guidelines for peer feedback and privacy. Let students know you will not share what they wrote about (unless it’s a safeguarding issue) & that they do not HAVE to participate in peer editing if they don’t have a friend in the class they feel okay swapping papers with.
2. Provide choice: Offer multiple prompts so students can find topics that resonate. My unit comes with 5 prompts that commonly appear on the Common Application and in scholarship essays.
3. Emphasize the writing process: Build in time for brainstorming, drafting, and revision; err on the side of giving them too much time rather than too little time if you aren’t sure.
4. Balance constructive criticism with warm, personal, enthusiastic encouragement: Getting feedback on these essays can be WAY more personal & feel more cutting to students than the feedback they recieve on other types of writing tasks. When you grade, give comments that focus on strengths, applaud what students did well, and point out EXACTLY what good traits they are showing (maturity, compassion, responsibility, forgiveness, etc.) while also guiding them toward improvement for things that really do need work. Just be careful that any “needs improvement” comments or marks are written in as gentle a way as possible & frame them as helping the student polish the work so as to make the best impression on the reader & have the most impact.

Wrapping Up

I LOVE teaching this mini-unit, and I’ve put the whole, ready-to-use, kit and caboodle up for anyone who wants a “done for you” 6-8 day lesson + writing activity. I love how this unit blends storytelling, self-reflection, and writing rigor into an engaging experience that my students consistently enjoy & thank me for teaching them. (Parents love it, too!)

By teaching narrative writing through the lens of college applications, you’ll not only improve your students’ writing skills but you can help them advance their academic futures & earn scholarship money, too. Honestly, this type of personal essay might be the most important 400 words your students ever write. It feels good to give them the tools to make those words count!