Andre S. ENG 111 Personal Expressive Essay 1 Silent Strength While working late one afternoon, I heard the weather report forecasting continuous thunderstorms throughout the evening. Hoping to escape the downpour and chaotic commute, I concluded my affairs and hurriedly exited the building where I worked. The warm humidity and the fragrance of rain momentarily engulfed me as I walked outside. Ominous clouds pregnant with moisture curtained the sky as rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning illuminated the stratosphere. The low lying wind steadily increased in velocity; the promises of a ferocious Norfolk summer storm were on display. I raced to my car and accelerated to Interstate 64, praying for favorable road conditions, but a sea of red lights beckoned, welcoming me into unmoving traffic. The motorists’ frustration heightened as we inched forward—crawling at a snail’s pace. A sense of foreboding and alarm suffused the air at the inevitability of the impending deluge. As thoughts of warmth and comfort pervaded my consciousness, a resounding clap made me jump. The clouds unfolded giving birth to torrential rains which descended mercilessly in blankets of white, impairing visibility as the wiper blades uselessly attempted the chore of removing water from the windshield. So I, along with the others who could, moved to the shoulder of the road. Sitting there waiting for the waters to abate, listening to the pounding pulse of the rain awakened an unpleasant childhood memory—seeing my mother cry for the first time. As a seven year old boy, numerous details escaped my observation because of my preoccupation with playing games and watching television. I vividly recalled my stupefaction at this peculiarity. When we were kids, inclement weather prevented us from venturing outside. To alleviate our boredom, my sisters and I started a rousing game of Uno—adding our own rules—starting arguments and fights. The sniffles and voices coming from the next room caught our attention. Mother and father were standing in the kitchen, speaking in hushed tones. We peeked in and saw mom hanging her head while dad stood rigidly, arms by his side. They attempted to keep their voices lowered, but the intensity of their disagreement caused fitful outbursts. Clearly they were embroiled in a dispute evidenced by the harsh words and gestures. The exchange escalated and father declared the argument futile, walking away. He emerged to tell us goodbye individually, then collectively, and left. Staring out the window, silently sobbing as tears rolled down her soft cheeks, mother helplessly watched his retreat. I walked over to her, tugged on her skirt and asked the obvious questions: “Is something wrong? Why was dad leaving and where did he go?” She straightened her spine, wiped her face and offered promises saying soothingly, everything would be fine. However, it was not fine. In the weeks that followed dad.

1. Andre S.
ENG 111
Personal Expressive Essay 1
Silent Strength
While working late one afternoon, I heard the weather report
forecasting continuous
thunderstorms throughout the evening. Hoping to escape the
downpour and chaotic commute, I concluded
my affairs and hurriedly exited the building where I worked.
The warm humidity and the fragrance of rain
momentarily engulfed me as I walked outside. Ominous clouds
pregnant with moisture curtained the sky
as rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning illuminated the
stratosphere. The low lying wind steadily
increased in velocity; the promises of a ferocious Norfolk
summer storm were on display.
I raced to my car and accelerated to Interstate 64, praying for
favorable road conditions, but a sea
of red lights beckoned, welcoming me into unmoving traffic.
The motorists’ frustration heightened as we

2. inched forward—crawling at a snail’s pace. A sense of
foreboding and alarm suffused the air at the
inevitability of the impending deluge. As thoughts of warmth
and comfort pervaded my consciousness, a
resounding clap made me jump. The clouds unfolded giving
birth to torrential rains which descended
mercilessly in blankets of white, impairing visibility as the
wiper blades uselessly attempted the chore of
removing water from the windshield. So I, along with the others
who could, moved to the shoulder of the
road.
Sitting there waiting for the waters to abate, listening to the
pounding pulse of the rain awakened
an unpleasant childhood memory—seeing my mother cry for the
first time. As a seven year old boy,
numerous details escaped my observation because of my
preoccupation with playing games and watching
television. I vividly recalled my stupefaction at this peculiarity.
When we were kids, inclement weather prevented us from
venturing outside. To alleviate our
boredom, my sisters and I started a rousing game of Uno—
adding our own rules—starting arguments and

3. fights. The sniffles and voices coming from the next room
caught our attention. Mother and father were
standing in the kitchen, speaking in hushed tones. We peeked in
and saw mom hanging her head while
dad stood rigidly, arms by his side. They attempted to keep their
voices lowered, but the intensity of their
disagreement caused fitful outbursts. Clearly they were
embroiled in a dispute evidenced by the harsh
words and gestures. The exchange escalated and father declared
the argument futile, walking away. He
emerged to tell us goodbye individually, then collectively, and
left. Staring out the window, silently
sobbing as tears rolled down her soft cheeks, mother helplessly
watched his retreat. I walked over to her,
tugged on her skirt and asked the obvious questions: “Is
something wrong? Why was dad leaving and
where did he go?” She straightened her spine, wiped her face
and offered promises saying soothingly,
everything would be fine.
However, it was not fine. In the weeks that followed dad did not
return. He called regularly, and I
was always excited to speak to him. The conversation though
mirthless made me happy; pretty soon, the
calls became infrequent as well as the funds. Our finances

4. became strained with insufficient money to buy
food, clothing and pay the bills. But mom found a second job
working part time in a hospital to cover the
family’s expenses. I would ask dad when he would be returning
and he’d evade the question or fumble
the response. Whenever I asked mom, she’d remain silent or
say, “I don’t know.” Neither offered an
explanation for the change in our family. Neither accepted
responsibility. Weeks became months, and
months became years, but when mom spoke of him, the words
and memories were continuously fond. We
adapted without quite understanding what happened. As I got
older, I would sometimes see mom teary
eyed or staring out that same window and I’d think to myself,
pitiful. I could not control my annoyance at
her weakness and inability to distance herself from his memory;
I felt anger at him for abandoning and
discarding us like waste and sadness by the chain of events.
This vulnerability tarnished an otherwise
amazing woman in my eyes.
Blaring horns jolted me from my reverie. As the rain tapered to
a drizzle, traffic slowly started
moving again. I pulled back on to the interstate; my thoughts
still lingering on that memory. I realized

5. that in my anger, I misjudged my mother. All this time, I was
blinded to her strength in adversity;
remarkably overcoming feelings of desertion with class and
resilience, deservedly earned my admiration.
She assumed all the household responsibilities – providing our
necessities, allotting us quality time,
compensating for the absence of our father. I now understood
that her weakness was caring and patiently
attending to our needs. And so in our lives, the meanest tests
bring out our inner untapped reserves of
strength—pulling us through our darkest and certainly toughest
moments, building stern characters and
mental backbones of steel.
I drove home silently apologizing to my mother for all the mean
thoughts I cultivated and
harbored over the years. I said a prayer to commemorate my
newly found sense of the true and real life
illustration of fortitude. Thankful for the lessons she taught me
without speaking, she taught by example
the authenticity of family responsibility. There are untold
volumes and mountains of strength in silence.

6. Essay 1:
Write an original personal expressive essay based on a person,
place, experience,
observation or object (2 -3 pages double-spaced).
Your first two essays should focus on the meaning of an
observation, experience, a person or a place, an object that
had some impact on your life or thoughts.
Guidelines
Your first original essay should be similar in style and voice to
the essay samples in Set 1.
I have selected a variety of exemplary essays by professional
writers and former students to use as
models so that you can then plan and develop your own essay.
You should pay particular attention to and
carefully review the model essays and use them as examples of
good prose. Personal expressive style doesn’t
mean casual, ungrammatical or sloppy writing—in fact, some
personal writing is the most powerful kind of
writing we read. It touches our hearts, minds and spirits,
sometimes, in ways no informative or objective
writing can. It’s the writing we care about most . . . so you
want this to be just right.

7. First and foremost, though, you must establish in your own
mind that you have some real purpose in
writing about what you choose to use as the focus of your essay.
The meaning of your subject, whether it is an
event, object, observation, place or a person, must be clearly
and cleverly revealed to your reader. There must
be some significance to what you write beyond just telling or
describing or sharing it. Your next consideration
is your audience or readers: What do they know? What is the
best way to approach them? What do you want
them to understand, feel or think? This will help you decide
what type of voice to use. Review all handouts on
the bb concerning these issues, especially the To Be Verb and
Showing vs Telling handouts!
The sample essays possess this one key quality: meaning
beyond the example/subject. All of the
sample essays have a clear sense of audience. You should
absolutely write for an audience other than me—your
peers would be the target group. We will share these essays
with others in the class. If, for example, you
choose to write about a personal experience or a person, keep in
mind that each reader must get something or
take a something away from your essay. Don’t dwell in the
realm of the obvious—telling readers what they

8. already know, pretending that the information is new and
revealing. While this is difficult to achieve, it’s the
only kind of writing that is worth reading.
So give it a try: write a draft, read it aloud to yourself or,
better, to someone else . . . then put it away for
a while then read it again, ready to make some revisions. You
need this time away from the writing to see it
again with new eyes. Save your first draft, but save your
revised one as another version (number these
chronologically as many times as you revise the essay). Be
ready to accept suggestions, while you give
feedback to others.
The last action you should perform before you submit or share a
copy of your writing is a mechanical
one: checking punctuation, word choices, etc. Submit the last
draft you come up with . . . not the first one!
Review the Top 10 List posted on the Bb before submitting your
final copy to me.
Try, as best you can, to say that the draft you submit is your
best work for the moment. Be open and
ready though to receive useful feedback and suggestions for
further revision after review. This is the writing

9. process we will use. You will have a chance to revise your
work after peer reviews . . . but forget this for now,
and write like you don’t have that opportunity. This may help
you produce your best essay.
Consider this a similar effort that athletes, musicians, dancers,
actors or artists put forth. They try to
perform in rehearsal or practice at the highest level possible.
While they understand that the work is just
practice, they benefit from this opportunity to achieve the best
they can at the moment. It is no different for
writers. If you think to yourself: “I’ll just write a sloppy draft
or a rough draft and submit that because I’ll get a
chance to rewrite it anyway,” you will not progress as far as you
would if you had tried to do your best writing.
Again, going all out in practice makes the final performance
better. There is no substitute for this kind
of effort. Yes, you may make mistakes and reconsider what
you’ve done later (and make revisions), but you’ll
be closer to the finish line if you’ve given a full effort every
time! Give this process a try, and you may see
wonders occur.
Essay specifications:
Heading information in upper left

10. Liz Anderson
Professor Antinarella
ENG 111 O 15C
15 February 2017
800 - 1000 words / multi-paragraph
Double-spaced / Standard 12 pt font / Times New Roman
Proofread / Spell check for mechanical errors
Label your essay document file with your last name and
identifying phrase:
e.g. Anderson Essay 1