So I’ve been doing workshops with some sixth year students about how to answer the composition questions on their upcoming Leaving Cert Exams. The composition question is compulsory and it’s worth 25% of their total mark. Along with old favourites like the short story, one of the most popular options is the personal essay. I’ll probably do a blog post about how to write a personal essay at some point. But first of all I just wanted to post some samples of my writing that I used as examples in class. These aren’t part of larger pieces yet, I might turn them into something eventually, but I thought it would be nice to start the New year by sharing some of my stuff. Looking back over old posts, I don’t think I’ve ever put some of my own writing on this blog, so here we go!
I made the students bring photographs to class to use as inspiration. One of the exercises was to describe a person, pick one incident that shows their personality and describe them in an interesting way using this incident. Below is the photograph I used. It’s from the day after I was born, when Granny and Granddad George visited me at the hospital.
Granddad George
He marched through the halls of the Coombe hospital. Armies couldn’t have stopped him. The Hulk would have barely dented his stride. Not even Granny could talk to him. He walked with his belly thrust forward daring the world to reprimand him.
One brave nurse politely stood in his way and asked ‘Sir, would you mind, this is a maternity hospital. I’m very sorry, but you’re going to have to put out the cigarette…’ She withered under his cheeky grin. The grin that said he knew he was being bold and he loved it. He was coming to visit me, the sixth grandchild, but the first granddaughter. And, most importantly, the first to share his surname.
Every Christmas this story is retold, how he held me in one massive hand, lit cigarette still dangling from the other, how I met my Granddad George. Of course I don’t remember, but I was present for many of the sequels, for the following years of divilment and cigarettes.