Step 1: Who am I

What do you want someone to know about you?

Write down about 10 qualities, passions, or values that are fundamental to who you are.

A quality describes who you are: a deep-seated character trait.

A passion is what you love: an interest, a hobby, an activity, a cause, etc.

A value is what you believe: what guides your decisions and actions.

• I am a leader
• I love crocheting
• I love writing
• I love volunteering
• I believe in being kind to people
• I believe in treating people with respect
• I believe everyone is capable of positive change
• I am smart
• I am caring
• I am loyal

From this list of 10, pick 3-5 that are MOST important to you:

• I believe everyone is capable of positive change
• I love volunteering
• I love writing
• I am a leader
• I love crocheting

Step 2: How did I get that way?

Step 3: What stories do I have to tell?

Freewrite #1 Value: Everyone is capable of positive change

I’m in my first grade classroom, rough blue carpet spread beneath the fingers of my small hands. There’s a pile of notebooks in the center of the room, different colors smeared on the ground. We’re sitting in a circle around it, quiet like this notebook selection is some kind of sacred ritual.

The boy next to me breaks the silence when our teacher calls the first person up to pick a notebook. “I bet you’ll pick pink,” he says, his voice filled with the smugness of a self-important child.

“Why,” I ask him, eyes still fixed on the notebooks. I want to pick pink, but I also want to know why he thinks I will.

“Because you’re a girl,” he says, voice souring on the last word like being a girl is the worst thing in the world to be.

1. What feelings did that bring up?
   Anger mostly. I didn’t like how ashamed that moment made me feel and how much I changed just because of that one comment.
2. How did it feel to write about that?
   It felt good. Cathartic, almost.
3. Did it come out easily, or was it really hard to put yourself back there?
   Once I got the hang of it, it came out very easily.
4. Did you want to keep writing when the timer went off, or could you not wait for the timer to sound so you could stop?
   I did want to keep going.

Freewrite #2 Quality: Volunteering

I’m folding cards, inking well wishes into each one. The rest of the Student Council is around me, doing the same. Laughter fills the room as we fill bags with various candies and notes.

I feel lighter.

1. What feelings did that bring up?
   It didn’t bring up many feelings. I don’t think I feel as strongly about this (in terms of specific moments) as I do some other things.
2. How did it feel to write about that?
   It was really stilted. I couldn’t figure out what moment to write about and I kept doubling back and deleting stuff because it wouldn’t come out easily.
3. Did it come out easily, or was it really hard to put yourself back there?
   It wasn’t hard to put myself back there, it was just hard to figure out anything meaningful to say about the moment.
4. Did you want to keep writing when the timer went off, or could you not wait for the timer to sound so you could stop?
   I wanted the timer to stop. Writing this was really stiff.

Freewrite #3 Passion: Writing

I’m in third grade and we’ve just been tasked with writing a poem. I grumble with the rest of my class, mostly because it seems like the cool thing to do (I’m very concerned with being cool, perhaps more than a third grader should be).

We’re supposed to be writing about moments in our lives. The five senses. Something relatively basic, though to me it seems like a monumental task.

Nevertheless, I get to work, brainstorming bulleted lists and combing meticulously through the list of fonts on Google Docs until I find one that’s the right combination of curly mess and legible.

And then I start writing.

The words seem to spill out of me when I start typing, like I was always meant to write them. It’s nothing groundbreaking but to me it feels earth shattering, like I’ve discovered something precious and beautiful inside of me.

1. What feelings did that bring up?
   The feeling of satisfaction and wonder at writing something I was proud of for the first time.
2. How did it feel to write about that?
   It felt nice revisiting such a good memory.
3. Did it come out easily, or was it really hard to put yourself back there?
   It came out easily.
4. Did you want to keep writing when the timer went off, or could you not wait for the timer to sound so you could stop?
   I wanted to keep writing.

Freewrite #4 Quality: Leader

Our flight is delayed.

I’ve been sitting in an unpleasantly sticky airplane seat for at least eight hours, busying myself with bad kid’s movies and airplane bread rolls. My brother is next to me with my mom in the aisle seat (as always).

She’s busy trying to get on the airport wifi so she can check the status of our connecting flight.

We have a connecting flight.

From the look on my mother’s face, it’s becoming increasingly likely that we will miss said flight and be stranded in the middle of Qatar.

By the time we get off the plane, the slim chance has become the width of a hair.

But I’ve had enough of sitting down and waiting for announcements, so I take matters into my own hands (literally).

1. What feelings did that bring up?
   Not many. While it was a very charged moment, I only felt proud revisiting it.
2. How did it feel to write about that?
   It felt normal, like writing about any other moment in my life.
3. Did it come out easily, or was it really hard to put yourself back there?
   It came out easily.
4. Did you want to keep writing when the timer went off, or could you not wait for the timer to sound so you could stop?
   I did.

Step 4: What story do I want to tell?

Outline

My Message

What I want the reader to know about me

1-3 of my fundamental qualities, passions, or values:

• I am confident
• But it took me a while to get to that place
• Finding my place in the world as a woman

My Medium

Aspect of selfhood I’m focusing on

This is the experience(s), identity(ies), or relationship(s) that are the main topic of your narrative. (At least one, but no more than three recommended or else you probably won’t be able to meaningfully integrate everything in one short essay.)

• Struggling with my identity as a woman growing up with internalized misogyny

Major moments in my narrative

These will be the “plot points” of your story. Think of your story as one hiking path through the woods of your life. You, the writer, are the guide who is leading the reader on the hike, showing them the way and getting them from point A to point B. What are the major signposts along that path? (Add or delete bullet points here -- there’s no “right” number!)

• When I changed which notebook I wanted because my classmate said pink was for girls
• Joined the Girls Who Code Club; became more comfortable
• Saw a mentor I respect take off her heels to cross a muddy field
• Became a leader in my peer group
• Joined the Feminist Literature club in 9th grade