Hometown Personal Essay Guide (500-700 Words) This essay is a narrative essay describing how your
hometown, your neighborhood, the place you grew up affected your beliefs, ideas, experiences, and
understanding of yourself. Just like the literacy narrative, it should tell a specific story about your life. Adapted
from “Life-Place” Essay: In this assignment you will practice inquiry through research, observation, exploration,
and reflection. This essay challenges you to consider how where you grow up and live shapes who you are
and how you live your life. You will choose a specific location and explore how that place relates to what you
believe about the world. You will describe the place in rich, evocative detail, then “rise up the mountain” of
reflection to show the importance of that place and describe how it relates to what you believe. You will engage
both personal experience and outside research. In its final form, your essay should: • Describe a specific place,
not just a city like Seoul or a country like South Korea • Reflect on that specific place’s importance in
determining what you believe • Engage narrative writing to tell a story about your life • Use descriptive
language, scene, and detail to engage the five senses • Have a thematically significant title • Effectively answer
so what? by the end