Personal Essays

1. What was one idea that the writer gave in the Wide Range of Topics section that you can use as you start deciding on a topic?
Some ideas the author gave in the wide range of topics section was to use Conversational topics that get you excited, or news stories that make your blood boil or get you laughing out loud, are likely to be provide good fodder for essays. Small gripes and observations also offer worthwhile material.
2. What was one idea the writer gave in the Opinions Pieces section that you should remember as you are writing your piece?
You may have a story to tell about a personal crisis, or a high point in your career.
3. List three suggestions the writer makes in the Personal Essays and Crafts section that you will use as you write.
Three suggestions the writer makes in the personal essays and craft section are 
1) Write as evocatively as possible. Employ all the senses. Using sight comes naturally to most writers; push harder to convey ideas and images through sound, taste, touch, and hearing.
2) Think of your essay as a camera lens. You might start by describing a fine detail (your personal experience or perspective, a specific moment in the narrative), then open up the lens to take in the wide view (the general/global backdrop), then close the piece by narrowing back to the fine detail. Or go the other way. Start with the wide view, focus in, then open up to the wide view again.
3) Take your ideas from wherever you can. Note your reactions to everything, pursue passing preoccupations and distractions, consider what makes you, glad, angry, passionate in what you read, see and hear. Mine your own past for incidents, images, lessons and epiphanies.