Personal and Reflective Forms: Personal Essays, Letters to the Editor, Speeches and Reflections

One winter, three forms

Last winter, Priya worked the canteen at her town's outdoor rink. She learned to count change with frozen fingers, met regulars who came every night, and watched council cut the rink's hours in February.

From that one experience she could write:

• a personal essay about what the rink taught her about community;
• a letter to the editor of the local paper arguing that the hours should be restored;
• a speech for the student council election, promising to organize a skating night;
• a reflection for her English portfolio on how writing the letter changed her opinion.

All four use her own experience and her own voice, but each has a different purpose, audience and form. The curriculum's list of Grade 11 forms includes examples like a student council campaign speech, and its publishing expectation mentions choosing a suitable letter format for a specific newspaper editor.

The personal essay

A personal essay is not a diary entry and not a story with a moral tacked on. It uses an experience to think on the page.

• Two selves. The then-self lived the experience; the now-self writes about it with more understanding. Good personal essays let us see both.
• Scene and reflection. Scenes show moments in sensory detail (dialogue, setting, action). Reflection steps back to think about them. Alternate the two; too much scene becomes a story, too much reflection becomes a lecture.
• Specific details make it real: not it was cold, but the cash box was so cold that the loonies stuck to my fingers.
• An insight, not a moral. Avoid I learned that hard work pays off. Aim for something truer and more particular: I had thought of the rink as a place for skating; it turned out to be the only place in town where the same people saw each other every night.
• Honest voice. First person, natural, and willing to admit uncertainty or mistakes.

A memoir uses the same techniques across a longer stretch of life. When you write about real people, be fair to them and think about their privacy; change names or details if needed and say so.

The letter to the editor

Newspapers, magazines and news websites publish short letters from readers. Editors choose letters that are short, focused, timely and civil.

• Respond to something specific: name the article's headline and date in the subject line or first sentence.
• One point, made quickly. Most publications prefer about 150 to 250 words, and many say so on their Letters page. Check the specific publication's rules: some want email only, some want your full name, community and phone number (for verification, not printing).
• Evidence: a fact or your experience. Your experience gives you authority (As a student who worked at the rink all winter...).
• End with what should change.
• Format: for email, put Letter to the editor: [topic] in the subject line; open with To the editor: or Dear Editor,; sign with your name and community. Choosing this format to suit the publication is part of the curriculum's publishing expectation (3.6).

The speech

A speech is written for the ear, not the eye. Listeners cannot reread, so:

• Hook them in the first 15 seconds: a question, a short story, a surprising fact.
• Establish credibility (ethos): why should they trust you? (I have been on the grad committee for two years.)
• Signpost clearly: I have three promises. First... Second... Finally...
• Keep sentences short and use repetition: anaphora (We need a council that listens. We need a council that acts. We need a council that...) and the tricolon (clear, fair and on time) make ideas memorable.
• Speak to them directly: you, we, us.
• End strongly: echo your hook and ask for something specific (Vote for Priya on Thursday).
• Time it. Many people speak at roughly 120 to 150 words a minute, so a two-minute speech is roughly 250 to 300 words. Read it aloud with a timer to check.

Reflective writing

Teachers often ask for a reflection after a project. Avoid simply retelling what you did. A simple and widely used structure has three questions:

• What? What happened, what did I do?
• So what? Why does it matter? What did I notice or learn about myself, the topic or my process?
• Now what? What will I do differently next time?