Why I’m developing a personal essay course for journalism students

Help me build a new journalism course by recommending your favorite personal essays.

One of my favorite parts of being a professor is developing new courses aimed at helping my students thrive. In recent semesters, I created a course about nonprofit journalism, and another about solutions journalism, both of which I’ll be teaching this upcoming academic year at the University of Texas at Austin.

I’m now designing another new course: The Reported Personal Essay. I conceived of this course five years ago, and it has finally made its way into the curriculum. The goal is to teach journalism students how to write personal essays that incorporate reporting (journalistic lingo for interviewing people and researching the topic at hand).

Credit: Canva

Personal essay writing is not typically taught in journalism schools, and I think that’s a missed opportunity.

Outside of opinion writing classes, we advise students to leave the “I” out of their stories. There’s good reason for this; it’s important for students to learn how to write stories based on facts and data they’ve gathered during the reporting process. Instead of putting themselves in the story, they need to center the voices of experts and people with lived experience. I teach related lessons in my foundational courses, where students learn the basic tenets of good journalism.

In my upper-division courses, I try to expand their view of what’s possible, based on where I think the field is headed. The Reported Personal Essay course will do exactly that, helping students see how the “I” can fit into journalistic storytelling. I’ll teach them how to write pieces that blend personal narrative, reporting, and research. We’ll discuss when it’s appropriate to do this (and when it’s not), the ethics of personal writing, the purposes it can serve, and more.

We’ll look at a wide range of personal essays, while also dispelling the misconception that they have to be about heavy topics. For example, consider Wesley Morris’ wonderful personal essay about why he grew a mustache during the pandemic. The essay, which was part of a Pulitzer-winning package of stories, explores a seemingly lighter topic with incredible depth.

We’ll also talk about how to write personal essays on a freelance basis — in college and beyond. Freelancing isn’t widely taught in journalism schools, but I think it’s important, especially as independent journalism continues to grow. Knowing how to freelance can also help graduates who don’t land a journalism job right away. If they freelance on the side, they can keep up with their journalistic skills until they find a role in the field.

Excited to teach this (waitlisted!) course. Credit: Canva.

I’ll bring in guest speakers who can share related lessons learned, and I’ll draw from my own experiences as a memoirist and a freelancer who has written personal essays for mainstream news outlets throughout my career. I consider it a compelling form of storytelling that hasn’t gotten as much credit as it should (partly because journalists are trained to keep a distance from the “I”).

But I think that’s starting to change. This year’s Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing, for instance, went to Aaron Parsley for his Texas Monthly personal essay about loss and survival in the aftermath of the Central Texas floods. Both that essay and his recent follow-up are beautifully written and show the power of the first person.

I’m also starting to see more memoir-writing trainings offered for journalists. (I’m teaching one through the Poynter Institute this fall and encourage you to check it out.)

More news organizations seem to be embracing reported first-person storytelling today than when I started my career, and my sense is that readers increasingly want stories that combine lived experience with rigorous reporting. At a time when public trust in media continues to decline, personal writing has the potential to help rebuild trust. Stories that show the journalist behind a byline, or that reveal how a piece came together, can make journalism feel more transparent — and more human. The more we can break down barriers between “the press” and “the public,” by showing that there are humans (and not bots) behind the stories we tell, the better.

Lately, I’ve seen journalists do this not just in personal essays but in news and feature stories, in which they use the first person to advance the storyline or pull back the curtain on their reporting process. Some examples include Caitlin Dickerson’s “Seventy Miles in Hell” about the Darién Gap, in which she follows migrants on their treacherous journey to the United States; and McKay Coppins’ recent piece, “The Incredible Story of the Cartel Olympics,” in which he offers a detailed, behind-the-scenes look at how the story came about. These weren’t personal essays, but they used the “I” in meaningful ways.

As I prepare for the fall semester, I’m compiling related examples and would love to hear your recommendations. What personal essays do you think I should include in The Reported Personal Essay reading list? What are some good examples of stories that include the “I” but aren’t personal essays? Who do you think would make a great guest speaker? (You’re welcome to recommend yourself/your own work!) I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Austin-area folks: Join me on August 11 for an event at First Light Books in Austin, where I’ll be celebrating the release of the paperback edition of my memoir SLIP. I’ll be in conversation with the lovely Pooja Lakshmin, followed by an audience Q&A and signing. You can find more details, and RSVP, here. Hope to see you there!