Title: Selections for Personal Essay
Course: Reading Summer School

Choose from the following personal essays:

- My personal reading essay
- My college entrance essay
- Critique of the college entrance essay (read the college entrance essay first)

Read through the essay either alone or with your partners and discuss the following:
- Take each section of the article and discuss what the author's message in each section.
- Clarify any words or ideas you do not understand. If you cannot together figure out what a section or word means, contact your teacher or another student.
- Pay attention to any reading strategies you are using in your mind or in your discussions. Notes when you use a strategy and what part of the reading you were discussing or thinking about. These reading strategies include:
  - visualizing
  - summarizing
  - connecting to your life, other texts, and the world
  - clarifying the meaning of words or phrases so you understand
  - predicting based on the text
  - asking questions
  - how the author organized his/her ideas
- Discuss your reaction or opinions about the author's message.

Write the following segments in your Wiki:
- List the title, author, and location (link to the web site) of the text.
- The author's message. Here is a sample that you may use as a shell if you wish:
  - The main point of this personal essay was (add a summary of the main point of your essay). The main details the author used to expand on the main point include (explain each main point of the personal essay). The conclusion of the essay was (list the conclusion listed in the essay).

- Your use of reading strategies. Here is a sample that you may use as a shell:
  - Reading strategies help a reader unlock the meaning of the text. One reading strategy we used was (list a strategy). We used this strategy to better understand this part of the text: (cut and paste the word, sentence, or paragraph you were reading when you used the strategy). This is how we used the specific reading strategy (list how you used the strategy. For instance, if you made a connection tell what you connected this part of the text to and how it better helped you understand the text

- Your reaction to the text. Here is a sample that you may use as a shell:
  - We thought the author's point was (state your opinion). The reasons we think this was because when the author said (cut and paste the appropriate part of the text) it made us think (state your reaction). Because of this we (restate your opinion in different words)