It's the first day of a new school year and your teacher has just assigned a personal essay.

They have good reasons for this assignment - personal or narrative essays allow teachers to assess your understanding of language, composition, and creativity. If you don't know where to start or feel overwhelmed by the open-ended prompt, this list is here to help you navigate the process from start to finish. Writing for yourself is easy to do when you have the basic components of a great essay in mind. You can't start a personal essay without a topic.

If you're stuck on what to write, check out some of these sources of inspiration: Consult idea lists to get your brain thinking about the possibilities of your essay. Remember https://essaypay.com/ that a personal essay is autobiographical, so don't write about anything untrue. Try writing a stream of consciousness . To do this, start writing what is on your mind and don't stop or leave anything out. Even if the ideas are not connected at all, a stream of consciousness gets everything in your brain on paper and often contains many ideas. Do a little research. Browsing through whatever interests you can really get the creative flow going and lead to little self-reflections. Grab any of the ones you think you would like to write about. Don't be afraid to ask your teacher what they are looking for. If you're still not sure what to write about, go to your teacher for suggestions or a more specific prompt. Before you start writing, remind yourself of the basic essay composition.

Almost all essays consist of three parts: an introduction, a set of information, and a conclusion. The five-paragraph essay is a common iteration of this and contains an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Use an outline or a general essay outline to jot down your ideas before you write.