白纸上布满黑字的作文本褪色了，书的一角也卷了起来。因为有许多回形针在喜欢的页面上做了标记，所以书再也无法抹平了。基本上每一页都做了笔记-一些地方很醒目，很难修改，还有一些不确定是不是记下了需要重写的地方。翻阅这些薄薄的纸页，我笑了起来，因为这让我想起了，我写作的全过程-从有大致的思路，到文章初就，最后润色、修改，直至完成一篇用字精辟，自己满意的文章，可以说这个本子记录了我过去一年作为一名作家的生活。

在我高三那年，英语老师让我们保存一个作文簿，这里面全部是我们从那些学业繁忙的日子里放松下来，写的东西。我们可以写想到的任何一个话题。从那时起，我就经常抽出时间溜到我房间角落里那张年代久远的木质摇椅上写作。以至于现在要在这篇文章里回答我是谁的问题，这让我自然而然的就想到了我的这个作文簿。

我是位作家

我的文章是我最亲密的生活的一部分。我把我所有的情感都倾注在这个作文簿里，小心呵护，不允许批评，也不容修改：我会告诉他（指作者的英语老师），他没有理解我的意思；没有细细的品味，没有让我的文字慢慢地滑落他的心灵，所以才会觉得我的文章糟糕；我希望他敞开心扉，让我随着我的文字进入他的心间；我希望他了解我素不为人知的一面；我希望他理解；如果他再一次挑刺，我要将这些话告诉他，这一次，一定——但当我将作文簿递交给他的时候，我第一次发现他的手原来是那么的粗糙，就像我的委屈与难过。我连忙将这些话咽了回去，扔进了垃圾堆，随风飘散。

我是一个孩子

长大以后，我经常骑着脚踏车穿过街道来逛逛我的小学校园，也会到小学背后的树林里找寻回忆。秋天的空气里依然弥漫着野苹果树的味道，还有那蜿蜒的土路。这时我就会把脚踏车丢在树底下，然后就去爬树，能爬多高就爬多高。整个下午，我都会坐在树上，正好可以坐在伸出来的树枝上，像是专门为我准备的座位。

一天，我在街上骑车，迎面过来一辆施工的工程车。我才发现，学校背后的树林，如今已成为停车场。每次看到停在停车场上的车子时，我都会哭出声，那个地方曾经属于我的苹果树，它用它撑起的天空，承载了我太多的甜蜜和伤心的过往。

我是一个女儿、表姐、外孙女

我的家庭对我来说很重要，我妈妈有一个很大的家族，每年我们都会聚在一起过年。我会和我的表妹们在一起玩儿，把他们抱在空中，听他们欢喜的大笑。我的许多亲戚都很年长，我也很恐惧长大，甚至对这种恐惧都变得麻木。每次拜访这些亲戚，我都会有这种感觉：踮起一双穿着运动鞋的脚尖，踩在一张旧式苍白的发黄的地毯，就像其它的房间里的其它东西一样，已经不再新潮。它很多地方都被磨了很久，多年以来被人们的鞋子来来回回的摩擦，它永远不会像之前新的时候那样。家里人，通常是把他们卷起来，然后扔掉，这在室内装饰经常变换的年轻人家里，是不能容忍的，因为这跟所有其它现代的装饰都不搭。但是，我的外祖母和舅舅已经在这不同材质的已过时的房子里住了很久，他们已经习惯了这发黄褪色的墙纸，也把地毯视作屋内景致的一部分。这些甚至比地板给人的印象还要深刻。

我是一个朋友

我将永远珍惜已逝去的校园里的美好回忆，也会永远记得我曾经喜爱过的朋友们。这里面的很多人我都在保持着联系，但很遗憾的是有一些朋友的通讯录我丢失了：但现在，天气时常变化，一股冷气流在逼近。这幅画面很少被关注到。一股冷空气透过窗子跑进来，无意间吹落了挂在布告栏上的旧照片。这幅旧照片伴随着久远的回忆慢慢掉到桌子后面的地板上，不会再有人注意到它。

我的浪漫疯狂

某天，我从晚会离开，

却忘了将他的汗衫归还：

汗衫上的小洞，

是我触摸的地方，

那隐约的袖角，

迷了路的线杂乱无章，

我提了提汗衫，

呼吸它的味道

于是，我笑了——

这味道那么像他。

我是一名梦想家

我喜欢坐在教室里，仍思维漫步，带我去我不曾到过的地方。我喜欢柯莱特的小说，喜欢听南国往事，我经常迷失在我最喜欢的书里：

真实的幻想，令我

目不暇接——

在那遥远的地方

温文尔雅的国土

激情与浪漫在此重叠

来一场海上冒险吧

闪耀的色彩鲜艳

歌声响彻，不曾停歇

我的作文簿不仅记录了我11年级那年的生活，也让我明白了我是怎样一个人。它让我很轻易地回答了一开始对我来说很困难的问题：告诉人们我说了什么，我是谁，让人了解是什么让我变成了现在的样子。时钟在滴答滴答响着倒计时，我迫不及待地想要逃离这，哪怕多待一分钟我都不愿意，尽可能用两倍行距、12号字体，358个字告诉他们我是谁，如果让我在一张纸上写我为什么哭，为什么笑，为什么非常想去他们心仪的学校，我猜我只对一件事感到很清楚，那就是我是谁。我是一名作家。

分析

“写作与生活”是一篇有作者自己态度，但同时也有一定风险的申请文书。

像许多其他的申请者一样，Pullman非常喜欢写作。她的文章形式新颖，因为她不仅仅简单地告诉招生官她喜欢写作，而且，通过她作文簿里的片段来展示给招生官她对写作的热爱，以及她是如何通过写作来理解和看待生活的。

但是Pullman在文章中写到她进行有创意的写作，如卡明斯风格的创作，这并不是为了展现她的内心温顺或是天才的一面。

每个高中高年级的学生都知道申请读大学的人，都希望在面试官整理的成百上千封文书中脱颖而出，让他们看到一份原创剧本、音乐演奏或者一段舞蹈的视频来作为文书。对其他人来讲，一篇带有更为明确、清晰结构，并且很好组织论据的论文，也许会是更好地被通过的一种方式。当然，没有文书是完美无可挑剔的，包括Pullman的作品。她的作文簿中更多是原创，Pullman在文章中用到了一些卡明斯的诗，她这种特殊的写作手法帮助她明确有力的表达她的个性。她的创新手法很激动人心，很有趣。

尽管，我们说“写作与生活”是一篇有风险的作品，但是Pullman成功了，在没有3-D影像和生动表演的帮助下，她成功了，这都让她的申请脱颖而出。

英文原版ESSAY参考

ESSAY3：”Pieces of Me”

The black and white composition book is faded, and the corners are bent. It doesn’t lie flat as many paper clips mark favorite places. Almost every sheet is covered with writing – some in bold handwriting hardly revised, others uncertainly jotted down completely marked up and rewritten. Flipping through the thin pages, I smile, remembering from careless thoughts to assassinate prose to precisely worded poems, this journal marks a year of my life as a writer.

In junior year, my English teacher asked us to keep a journal for creative writing, as a release from otherwise stressful days. We were free to write on any topic we chose.

From then on as often as I could, I would steal away to the old wooden rocking chair in the corner of my room and take time off to write. As I now try to answer the question of who am I for this essay, I immediately think of my journal.

I am a writer.

My writing is the most intensely personal part of me. I pour my heart out into my journal and am incredibly protective of it. It’s difficult for me to handle criticism or change rejection: I can tell he wouldn’t read it right wouldn’t let the meaning sink into him slow and delicious it would sound awful through his careless eyes I want him to open himself up to it and let in a piece of me I want him to know this side of me no one ever has I want him to be the one to understand let me see he prods once more I tell myself this time I’ll do it I let myself go but as it passes into his rough hands I see it for the first time it’s awkward and wrong just like me I snatch it back from him and crumble it it falls with hardly a noise into the trash

I am a child.

Growing up, I would always ride my bike over to the elementary school across the street and into the woods behind it. Crab apple trees scented the fall air and the winding dirt paths went on forever. I’d drop my bike at the base of a tree and climb as high as I could. All afternoon I would sit in these trees whose branches curved out a seat seemingly made just for me.

One day I biked across the street to come face to face with construction trucks. Those woods are now a parking lot. I cry every time I see cars parked where my crab apple trees once stood: He allowed the sweet sadness to linger As he contemplated a world That he knew too much about.

I am a daughter, a cousin, a great-niece.

My family is very important to me. My mother has a huge extended family and we all get together once a year for a reunion. I play with my little cousins and toss them in the air to their squealing delight. Many of my relatives are elderly, however, and I find it hard to deal with serious illness in these people I love. I am also deathly afraid of growing old and losing all sense of myself. When visiting relatives, I have to come to terms with these feelings: With the toe of my sneaker, I push at the ancient pale yellow carpet. Like all the items in the apartment, it is way past its prime. It is matted down in most places, pressed into the floor from years of people’s shoes traversing back and forth. It will never be as nice as it once was, that much is certain. At home it would be pulled up, thrown out, not tolerated in an ever-moving young family, not fitting in with all the useful, modern surroundings. But here, in this foreign, musty apartment where my great-aunt and uncle have lived so long that they seem to blend right into the faded wallpaper, the carpet is a part of the scenery. It could not be removed any more than the floor itself.

I am a friend.

I will always treasure memories of sleep-away camp and the friends I fell in love with there. Many of these people I have managed to keep in touch with, but I regret that some I have lost: But now… the weather is changing. A cold front has moved in. the picture is barely noticed. Perhaps other pictures of other memories brighter and newer hide it from view. A cool breeze steals in through the open window, and the careless wind knocks down an old picture from the bulletin board. The picture falls in slow motion, taking with it a far-off memory. It comes to rest behind the desk, lying on the floor, never to be seen again. Its absence is not even noticed.

I am an incurable romantic.

Leaving a party one night, I forgot to return the sweatshirt I had borrowed:

Touching the small hole

In the bottom corner

And the stray thread

Unraveling the sleeve

I lift it up

And breathe in its smell

I smile quietly

It smells like him

I am a dreamer.

I often sit in class and let my imagination take me wherever I want to go. I love to read stories of mythic Camelot or the legendary Old South, losing myself in my favorite books:

The three dimensional

Kaleidoscope fantasy

Of far-off lands

And courtly kingdoms

Of passion and romance

And high seas adventure

Is shining with vivid colors

And singing with non-stop noise

My journal from eleventh grade not only chronicles a year of my life, but it tells the story of who I am. It is the closest I can get to even beginning to answer that difficult question: Tell them she says just tell them who you are let them know what makes you tick tick tick the clock is counting down I can’t wait to get out of here just a far more minutes smile and pretend you care tell them who I am in 358 words double-spaced 12 point font as if I even know as if I could even if I did on a single sheet of paper why I cry why I laugh why I want so badly to go to their lovely school

I guess I do know one thing about who I am. I am a writer.

ANALYSIS（分析）

“Pieces of Me” is an admissions essay with attitude – a personal statement that takes a risk.

Like many college applicants, Pullman is interested in writing. Her essay stands apart form the pack because she doesn’t simply tell the admissions officer she likes to write. Instead, when used excerpts from her journal to show the admissions officer how much she loves to write, how much she depends on her writing to help her explain and understand life.

But Pullman’s decision to include creative writing – i.e. cummings style – in her personal statement is not a decision for the meek of heart or the semi-talented.

Every high school senior has heard stories of college applicants who, in the quest to stand out among the hundreds of other essays an admissions officer must sort through, submitted an original screenplay, musical composition, or videotape of an interpretive dance as their personal statement. In cases like Pullman’s where real talent show through, those risks may pay off. For others, a more conventional piece with a strong, clear thesis and well-written supporting arguments may be the better road to take.

Of course, no piece is perfect, including Pullman’s. As original as many of her journal excerpts may be, Pullman prefaces many of them with somewhat cliché transitions which weaken the underlying premise of the piece – that Pullman’s unique writing help articulate her unique personality. Her creative writing is exciting and interesting; her more academic writing is less so.

Still, “Pieces of Me” is a risky endeavor that works. Pullman succeeds, without the use of a 3-D visual aid or live performance, in making her application stand out.

注：此篇ESSAY出自哈佛成功ESSAY50篇第一版