Writing A Creative "Essay" Exercise

This might be an example of starting with a word (shoulder) and turning it into an essay based in personal memory and including outside research, association, etc. :

Crown and Shoulder by Steven Churchhttp://passagesnorth.com/current-issue/crown-and-shoulder/


Writing A Creative "Essay" Exercise (genre, form, structure open to your own preferences and interpretation; start with the instructions here, create the material, and then take it where you will...)

(from: http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/Robert_Root/AWP/cnf.htm)

First, begin with a description of a memory from childhood, which you write in present tense and without using "I" or "Me"

Next, use that description as one section in the following, and from which you choose a particular word for the focus of the rest of the exercise.

Kim Barnes: “What is a Word Worth?”

        I often speak to my writing students about "bringing their intellect to bear" as they compose their personal essays.  What I mean by this is that the best literary nonfiction should work at a number of different levels, including the level of intellectual stimulation.  The problem we face as writers of nonfiction is how to challenge our individual stories--how to take the narrative itself and expand its breadth and reach to encompass more of the world. 

        One exercise that I use to help my students achieve this goal involves building an essay from a single word. First, the students each choose one word--any word--to which they are particularly drawn, a word that resonates for them.  A young man just discharged from the military chose "paratrooper"; a middle-aged woman of Scottish descent chose "bagpipes."  I then require that the students write five sections of nonfiction revolving around this single word: The first, third, and fifth sections must be personal memories triggered by the word, and they must be written in present tense no matter the actual chronology; the second and fourth sections must be more analytical, intellectual, philosophical, and explore the word in a more scholarly way.  I direct the students to study the word's derivation and history. They often find passages in religious texts and mythologies that inform the word's meaning in their own experience.  Some discuss the word's appearance and use in contemporary literature or film.

        The goal of this exercise is to weave the word's broader application into the writer's personal experience.  Ideally, the five sections weave together and inform one another and bring to the essay a kind of intellectual unity as well as a greater depth and complexity.