Practice Essay



Practice Essay

This writing exercise will help your instructor discover who you are as a writer.


The essay will be used to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and it will allow the instructor the opportunity to identify grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical problems specific to each student. Do not fret over the idea that grammar, style, and mechanics will be evaluated in this assignment. This writing exercise is merely one way to take a look at any particular patterns that exist in your writing. You will earn full credit for completing this assignment as long as you follow instructions.


A personal essay is about a life experience, person, or object that has significance to you and that you tell to an audience for a reason. The Ashford Writing Center provides a helpful overview of Personal Writing, which reflects the type of essay you will be writing for not only the Practice Essay, but your Final Essay as well.


Use one of the ideas for a personal essay that you came up with in the “Generating Ideas for Writing” discussion. Your essay should stir readers into thinking about and remembering their own experiences.

The essay should be 550 to 800 words in length. This essay does not require incorporating any external sources.