One of the foundations of learning is writing, and in the United States this is one area where students are having a very difficult time.  The ability to write about your goals, dreams, memories, and stories are vital to all students in school and society.  To make sure that students are successful in writing, students need to begin writing meaningful work early on. One form of writing that allows for students to explore meaningful life experiences is the personal experience essay.

This unit, intended for grades K-2, will focus on the craft of writing a personal experience essay. Genre characteristics of the personal experience essays will be explored in professional texts as well as mentor texts for students such as Each Kindness, Owl Moon, and Mango Moon, and Jabari Jumps.  These texts model the craft of personal experience essay writing are very diverse in authors, characters, and storyline.  Teachers considering using these texts to model personal experience essay writing will benefit from having specific passages highlighted to prepare students to write their own essays. 

(Developed for Writing, grade 1)