Sharing Personal Stories

The assignment began with an in-class activity, which narrowed down important elements of each student’s life. The factors included name, gender, religion, ethnic/racial heritage, personal skill, most important memory and favorite senses. Throughout the assignment, students learned about the components of a great essay, styles of essays and offered peer critique and revision.

Below is a sample of essays. To view more, students will be uploading their essays to the online Middle School literary journal at www.discoverwithme.org.

As said by Og Mandino, “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” In this world full of hardships, difficulties, and let-downs, it can sometimes be hard to rise above the billions of other people in the world, achieve your goals, and accomplish your dreams. Sometimes it feels like the world has grown hands and is purposely trying to drag you down, while lifting everyone else up. But there is an unseen force in this world, a force unlike any other, and with it you can slowly drag yourself back up again and free yourself from life’s firm grip. This unseen force, if used correctly, can take you from being just another person trying to succeed and happily live your life in this world, to a person who can and will. This force is dedication. If you truly have dedication, it means that you won’t stop working hard. That you won’t let failure get the best of you. If you dedicate yourself to a certain task, then there is nothing in this world that can stop you.

Everything Is About Me, Isn’t It by Anna Asch
I was originally Sofia Asch, but I realized in fourth grade that I was Anna Sofia Asch. Before the dawn of Anna Asch, I was a weird child (I still am), I wore dresses, talked to myself (I still do), and I watched silly cartoons. I had an intense passion for annoying my baby brother, Aden. My hair was long and way too fuzzy to deal with. I wore long sleeved clothes in summer, and shorts in winter. I didn’t care about what other people thought about me, and I was a carefree, outgoing ten-year-old. It all changed when I started fourth grade. I used to go to a small little public school in Scripps Ranch. To everyone, I was Sofia Asch and that’s how it was.

With the last of my attention span, I wrote D-A-N-T-E in the top right corner of my construction paper, just avoiding the small puddle of glue and plastic eyeball. I was struck with a familiar thought. It just didn’t add up. Why did my parents name me this? It was such a weird name and I had never heard anything like it before. I thought that such an amazing hand turkey deserved a better signature. It was everywhere, too. On the tags of my shirts, on my lunchbox, and even on the inside of my baseball glove. At this point, I didn’t even know how to spell, much less pronounce my last name, and to this day I still don’t even know what it means. I didn’t like my name and I wished I had been named something else, but as time went on, I realized that my name wasn’t so bad after all.

There is only one person in the entire world that has inspired me to love life to the fullest. It’s not my mom; not my dad; not my best friend. It’s my Great Aunt Mardy. I truly believe that just her existence on this Earth has made the world a better place. She contracted polio when she was a teen and has gone through many hardships. But through it all, she has been the strongest person in our family, inspiring us all. Sadly, I only got to be inspired once a year, and that was during Thanksgiving, which is also the time of the famous family Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl. And four years ago, I scored the winning touchdown for my team during this football game.

Everyone is different in their own way. Each person has something that distinguishes them from others. It can be their appearance, like their hair color, height, skin color, or eye color. It can be their personality and abilities. A person can be funny, nice, out­going, smart, athletic, or talented. Sometimes it’s a person’s ethnicity, religion, or nationality. A person can be a combination of things, but everyone is different.

Black and white. These words aren’t actually colors (they’re shades,) but many people describe their view of the world in these terms. Some people have the capability of seeing the world in everlasting hues of red, white and blue. I neither have the patriotism nor the stubbornness to color the world that way. Others dare enough to expand to the full 12 Crayola Colored Pencil pack (preferred by teachers!), introducing new colors such as green, purple, and yellow to their usually mundane lives. I can’t relate to any of these categories. I can’t just limit myself to just 12 colors. I am no 12 pack, I am a 72 variety pack of colored pencils. My whole world is a symphony of colors, but maybe it’s all in my imagination.  

The Light by Shannon Twomey
My family has a tradition. Each year we go on a ten hour drive to Yosemite National Park. At the very end of the drive, there is a long tunnel. We try to hold our breath and lift our legs until we get to the end of the tunnel. I have never been able to hold my breath for the entire time, so each year I strive to break my record. As we get closer and closer to the end, you start to see a small bright light. Then the light gets brighter, and brighter, and a few seconds later, the bright light overwhelms your eyes, you blink, and then you see a mountain, a waterfall, beautiful trees, lots of people, and cars. I watch my family put their legs down, exhale, and then I take in the beautiful view.