Place Essay

Your essay should center on a place. What that ultimately means will depend greatly on the genre you choose to write in. If you’re writing some travel writing, you will likely write in a more conversational tone, and try to give your audience some practical insights into a place you’ve been that they might visit, its history, and its culture. (You’ll also probably include images.) If you’re writing an ethnography of place, you will want to think about how to incorporate research and likely some theoretical perspective. If you’re writing a memoir of place, you’ll need to work in details about the place that help support the emotional takeaway. In other words, the genre you select is going to go a long way in terms of helping you make certain writing decisions.

With that said, I’ll be expecting pieces that are consistent with most of the features of your chosen genre, that demonstrate a clear focus on a place, that have a voice and style of their own, and that try to say something meaningful, interesting, noteworthy, or entertaining to a particular audience. You should, in other words, write something that shows you’ve made choices about your topic, your genre, your writing, and your audience.