Erik TP 8

When Hyejin and I met for our next session, I had her start by reading the writing assignment I had given her. I asked her to write a page characterizing a person she knew well. She picked her sister, giving me a list of adjectives that seemed contradictory. I told her it was ideal to show these multiple sides of a person, to show their humanity. Specifically, her scene caught her sister idly standing in a room, while Hyejin tried to express concern for her dying plant, which “had grown from the love within [her] heart.” By the end of the scene, her sister showed empathy towards Hyejin, emphasizing that the plant was a living creature too, which needed to pass on pretty soon.

I told Hyejin how much I enjoyed her story, and how I already saw her writing blossoming. I decided since we only had a couple more sessions left that we were going to focus on producing a personal essay for Hyejin. We started out with memoir, in direct opposition to her academic writing, just to see if she could think outside the proverbial box for a bit. The personal essay weaves the normal format of an essay with support from personal insights and experiences. It’s the red-headed step-child of Academia and Memoir, but I saw it to be an appropriate ending spot for Hyejin.

I then had Hyejin read a personal essay I had written. I took my name off of it, so she could read it first without associating it with me. Because it was pretty personal, I was worried how she may react, but I knew it was a great example of the personal essay. We talked about what worked about it, and what points that could be improved.

When I told her the essay was mine, she was happy to hear it. Before this, Hyejin and I had already talked about writing about really personal matters. I told her writing helps remove yourself from the situation, because you’re telling the story now, exactly how it happened to you. I strongly believe that we’re naturally messy people, but our minds strive to make sense of it all. To me, writing is that exact thing—it helps me make sense of past events, and how I truly feel about them. I can see Hyejin’s eyes light up after all of our sessions, and I’m excited to see her break out from her normal style of writing.