The Uncommon College Essay: An Approachable Guide to an Intimidating Process by Stacey Brook
Many thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for
allowing me to read an advanced copy of Stacey Brooke’s insightful The Uncommon College Essay: An Approachable Guide to an Intimidating Process. Brook, who
runs an college essay advisory company (College Essay Advisors-CEA), has assembled
a fun and useful book that prepares students to write one of the most
consequential pieces of their academic careers- the college essay (or personal
statement). Brook makes this task fun and uses encouragement to engage readers
to think and question themselves in order to write and convey to admissions
officers what makes them stand out among a broad array of candidates for
college. This book comes out just in time as many students are either beginning
their process of researching and assembling their college materials or
finalizing their submission materials to prepare for their next step in their learning
journeys.
I really appreciated Brook’s approach and her conversational
style throughout the book. While the book provides helpful activities and
exercises to engage in during the writing process, the book is not a task to
read; furthermore, as an experienced writer and teacher who has supported
students in writing their college essays, Brook provides many different ways to
approach the tasks in the writing process. Ultimately, she identifies the stages
of pre-writing/brainstorming, freewriting, organizing/drafting, and then
revising. However, what makes her book stand out are the varieties of
activities and approaches she has for each step. As if to silence the kinds of
resistance and challenges that students might present, Brook provides many
different ways to approach these tasks and to do so in a fun and personal way
that makes the process of writing more about self-discovery and celebration
than the slog or pressure filled task that it could seem like to many high
school students. Brook’s frequent asides and parenthetical comments kept me
laughing and appreciating her humorous approach to writing. Furthermore, they
help to highlight how fun and personable this kind of writing can (and should)
be. She regularly revisits interesting and unique facts about her life (ability
to eat a whole pizza, plant mom) as an example of the kinds of unique aspects
of one’s identity or experiences that might be further analyzed to explain more
about their qualities. It was also interesting that she used these kinds of
working examples from her own writing rather than student samples. She explains
that the student samples can sometimes become like a template or map for
students, who might end up copying the example, but failing to make the essay unique
or personal. She does provide some student examples (with commentary) on introductions
and conclusions which I found helpful and interesting. Nevertheless, I can
appreciate this approach since sometimes students might approach the task as a
writing assignment rather than a personal narrative or statement.
Brook’s book is a great guide for students, but it can also be
a useful resource for teachers and parents. I know that when my kids are ready
for any kind of personal narrative or personal statement type assignments, I’ll
be able to reference some of the activities and approaches as well as utilize
Brook’s motivational tools for overcoming writer’s block, procrastination, and
the kind of general anxiety that might impact high stakes writing. Many of
these suggestions are just best practices for writing, so it was helpful to
revisit these since they can serve as some additional tips to present to
students. I also wish that this was a book that was available when I was
teaching high school English to many aspiring first generation college
students. Brook’s tips and suggestions, as well as different exercises and activities
to examine personal experiences were really helpful in exploring one’s personal
identity and what makes them unique. I could see myself proposing choices for
several different activities for some students who struggled with identifying
those key experiences, qualities, or events that helped to define them, and further
refining them to extract and communicate that meaning to admissions officers.
Stacey Brook’s The Uncommon College Essay is a great
addition to the resources that are available for students, parents, and
teachers in supporting their students to write their most impactful college
essay or personal statement. Brook’s experience and knowledge with the tasks
and requirements across different colleges helps prepare students to not only
approach individual requirements, but to also then take their experiences and
writing and revise or repeat the process for another institution that might
have a different question or prompt. What I found most helpful was her humorous
and conversational style in discussing this process as well as her tips for
managing the varied constraints and stress that comes along with this process.
Highly recommended!
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