what is a braided essay

Braided Essay: Student Guidelines & Examples

Icon Calendar 15 September 2024
Icon Page 3980 words
Icon Clock 18 min read

As a literary form, a braided essay is unique for its distinctive ability to weave together multiple narrative strands or threads (from 2 to 4 on average), creating a new and complex piece of ideas and themes. Basically, this structure is crucial in academic writing for its ability to explore topics from various angles. In a braided essay, each strand or thread, such as a personal anecdote, historical analysis, or theoretical exploration, maintains its distinctive role and perspective, and it is connected to other elements, creating a harmonious and coherent whole work. Further on, such a writing method is effective in illustrating how different elements can be connected to each other, indicating new layers of meaning and understanding. By following a linear narrative style dominant in traditional academic essays, a braided writing structure enables a more holistic and reflective exploration of subjects. As a result, this form of writing also engages readers actively, compels them to draw connections between various strands or threads, and promotes a more engaged and critical approach to reading and interpretation.

What Is a Braided Essay and Its Purpose

According to its definition, a braided essay is a distinctive literary form of writing characterized by an interweaving of several narratives or threads of thought (from 2 to 4 on average), much like strands in a braid. For example, the main purpose of writing a braided essay is to allow an author to explore complex ideas and emotions in a non-linear fashion, offering different perspectives that converge to create a cohesive whole (Miller & Wade, 2021). Basically, each strand or thread in a braided essay stands as a self-contained narrative, claim, or argument. Further on, for authors, the purpose of using a braided narrative structure is to connect different themes from multiple perspectives, leading to a new understanding of topics under analysis (Girgensohn, 2023). In principle, a braided essay structure can follow not only a linear narrative writing format but also a more complex arrangement that reflects various connections to life experiences and ideas. Moreover, a braiding technique enables people to use personal anecdotes with scholarly research or historical events (Warburton, 2020). Essentially, this form of an entire synthesis of personal and external elements results in writing new insights and perspectives about storytelling and creative nonfiction. Finally, some examples of threads can be personal stories, research, historical events, or other types of content that might seem unrelated at first glance (Nisbet, 2024). In terms of pages and words, the length of a braided essay depends on academic levels, institutional expectations, and topic complexities, while general writing guidelines are:

High School

Length: 1–2 pages
Word Count: 250–500 words

College (Undergraduate)

Length: 2–4 pages
Word Count: 500–1,000 words

University (Advanced Undergraduate)

Length: 3–6 pages
Word Count: 750–1,500 words

Master’s

Length: 4–8 pages
Word Count: 1,000–2,000 words
Length: 5–12+ pages
Word Count: 1,250–3,000+ words

How to Write a Braided Essay: Easy Steps & Example

Note: Some writing sections of a braided essay can be added, deleted, or combined with each other, depending on specific course requirements and topics authors want to share. For example, a standard braided essay format interweaves multiple narrative strands or perspectives, alternating between them to explore a central theme in a more complex and layered way (Miller & Wade, 2021). Basically, a braided style of writing intertwines multiple narrative threads or perspectives, alternating between them to explore different facets of a central theme, creating a more layered and dynamic narrative. Further on, a braided memoir is a type of autobiographical writing that interweaves multiple personal stories or themes, alternating between them to create a deeper, more layered narrative about an author’s life (Humble, 2023). In writing, an example of a braided narrative might be a story that alternates between some experiences of three characters from different time periods, each facing a similar struggle, with key threads eventually converging to reveal a shared theme or resolution. Finally, to start a braided essay, people introduce a central theme and briefly hint at different narrative threads they will explore, setting a stage for how these strands will connect throughout an entire paper.

How to Start in 5 Steps

Like any other type of paper, starting a braided essay requires a thoughtful approach to set a stage for a correct weaving of narratives. For example, people begin by introducing their central theme or question, which is an anchor that ties their strands together (Miller & Wade, 2021). Then, they focus on each narrative thread, writing about stories or ideas they plan to connect. Moreover, a strong start in a braided essay is like separating key strands before weaving them into a cohesive and beautiful whole (Warburton, 2020). In turn, some examples of sentence starters for beginning a braided essay are:

It began with a memory I cannot shake, one that ties together everything that came after … .
In a stillness of a morning, I often find myself thinking about … .
There is a story I have been meaning to tell, but it is more than just one story … .
When I first heard the news, I did not realize how it would connect to … .
The world around me shifted in ways I did not expect, leading me to … .
On that day, I did not understand how this moment fit into a larger pattern … .
An entire scent of rain on pavement always brings me back to … .
Sometimes, events that seem unrelated at first slowly begin to intertwine, like … .
It was not until years later that I noticed a thread linking these moments together … .
Important echoes of that moment still linger, resonating with everything that has followed … .

Step 1: Identify Distinctive Strands (2-4 Threads)

Students begin by identifying different strands or narratives they will intertwine in their braided essays. For example, these elements may include personal anecdotes, stories, historical events, research findings, or theoretical discussions (Humble, 2023). In writing, each thread should be distinctive and relevant to a central theme of a braided essay.

Step 2: Develop Each Strand Individually

Before intertwining strands, people need to develop each thread separately. For example, authors must ensure different body elements are coherent and complete in themselves (Fleckenstein et al., 2020). Moreover, this writing aspect involves fleshing out key details, arguments, or stories within each thread, ensuring they are engaging and well-articulated in a braided essay.

Step 3: Interweave Strands

Authors start braiding all chosen strands together. For example, such a process involves making connections between different narratives at critical points (Humble, 2023). In writing, an entire transition between threads should be smooth and logical, allowing readers to follow a logical flow of a braided essay without confusion.

Step 4: Highlight Connections and Contrasts

As people weave all chosen strands, they need to highlight their connections and contrasts. For example, this stage is crucial in writing a braided essay, as it improves an author’s understanding of a topic (Miller & Wade, 2021). Moreover, they should provide multiple perspectives and layers of meaning.

Step 5: Conclude With Synthesis

In the end of writing, students synthesize all the insights gained from interwoven narratives. For example, it does not necessarily mean providing a resolution but offering a reflective overview of how intertwined threads contribute to a deeper understanding of a braided essay’s central theme (Warburton, 2020). However, writing an entire composition must include a clear synthesis of ideas presented.

Steps on How to Write a Braided Essay

To write a braided essay, people alternate between multiple narrative threads, develop each one with depth, and gradually weave them together to explore and reflect on a central theme. For example, a braided narrative structure intertwines multiple storylines or perspectives, alternating between them to create a unified exploration of a central theme or concept (Miller & Wade, 2021). In writing, an example of a braided essay might be a piece that weaves together personal anecdotes about childhood, scientific research on memory, and historical events, alternating between these threads to explore a theme of how past experiences shape identity. As such, some basic writing steps include:

Choose a Central Theme: Identify a main topic or idea that will connect various narrative threads.
Select Multiple Narrative Strands: Choose at least two or three different perspectives, stories, or ideas to explore a central theme in writing.
Outline Each Thread Separately: Plan each narrative strand with its own introduction, key points, and conclusion.
Develop Each Element Individually: Write each narrative separately, ensuring each strand has depth and contributes to a central theme.
Alternate Between Threads: Begin braiding defined strands by alternating between them throughout an entire essay.
Use Transitions to Connect Strands: Ensure smooth transitions between each narrative to build connections between them.
Create Emotional and Thematic Tension: Contrast or complement different strands to add complexity and depth to a given theme.
Deepen Interconnections: As an essay progresses, emphasize how presented strands relate to each other and an overarching theme.
Conclude by Weaving Strands Together: End writing a braided essay by tying various threads into a cohesive and reflective conclusion.
Edit and Refine: Revise a braided essay and its writing for clarity, ensuring key connections between discussed strands are clear, while an entire narrative flows smoothly.

Braided Essay Topics

Climate Change: Personal Impact and Global Policies
Cultural Identity: Exploring Heritage and Modern Influences
The Intersection of Art and Science in Historical Contexts
Mental Health: Personal Experiences vs. Societal Perceptions
The Influence of Technology on Human Relationships
Journeys in Nature: Personal Adventures and Environmental Conservation
Food Culture: Family Traditions and Global Cuisines
The Role of Music in Personal Development and Cultural Expression
Education Systems: Personal Learning Experiences and Theoretical Frameworks
Migration Stories: Personal Narratives and Political Contexts
Urban vs. Rural Living: A Personal and Sociological Perspective
Fitness and Wellness: Personal Goals and Healthcare Systems
The Evolution of Communication: From Letters to Digital Media
Fashion Trends: Personal Style and Historical Influences
Language and Identity: Personal Linguistic Journey and Sociolinguistics
Travel and Discovery: Personal Expeditions and Historical Explorers
Parenting Styles: Personal Experiences and Psychological Theories
Social Media: Personal Use and Its Impact on Society
Work-Life Balance: Personal Strategies and Corporate Policies
Volunteering: Personal Motivations and Community Benefits
The Changing Landscape of News Consumption: From Print to Digital
Gender Roles: Personal Experiences and Societal Expectations
Space Exploration: Personal Fascination and Scientific Endeavors
Reading Habits: Personal Literary Journeys and Evolving Publishing Trends
Sustainable Living: Personal Practices and Global Environmental Policies
The Evolution of Gaming: Personal Experiences and Technological Advances
Historical Events: Personal Family Stories and Their Place in World History
The Influence of Cinema: Personal Impressions and Film Industry Changes
Entrepreneurship: Personal Business Ventures and Economic Theories
Spirituality and Religion: Personal Beliefs and Cultural Practices

Outline and Template

Organizing a 5-Paragraph Structure of 3 Threads

Title: Unique Topic

I. Introduction

Introduce a central theme or question of a braided essay.
Briefly present 3 threads (narratives or ideas) that will be braided for writing your essay.
Thesis statement: Summarize the main point or insight that emerges from intertwining these elements.

II. Body Paragraph 1: Introduction of Thread A

Introduce a first narrative or idea (Thread A).
Provide background information or context.
Explain how Thread A relates to a central theme.

III. Body Paragraph 2: Introduction and Weaving of Thread B

Introduce a second narrative or idea (Thread B).
Weave Thread B with aspects of Thread A introduced previously.
Highlight connections or contrasts between Threads A and B.

IV. Body Paragraph 3: Introduction and Weaving of Thread C

Introduce a third narrative or idea (Thread C).
Weave Thread C with aspects of Threads A and B.
Emphasize how Thread C adds meaning and depth or a new perspective to a braided narrative.

V. Conclusion

Provide a summary of how 3 strands are interwoven and what this new perspective reveals about a central theme.
Reiterate a central thesis in a light of 3 braided narratives.
Offer final reflections or implications of some insights gained from writing a braided essay.

List of References (Optional)

Mention all academic sources used for writing a braided essay and follow a required citation style, such as APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, Harvard, or any other format.

Note: People can add or remove body paragraphs depending on a specific number of strands to write about. However, a central logic of a braided essay must be followed for 2 or more threads. For example, a standard structure will depend on a number of critical points between 2 or more threads (Miller & Wade, 2021). Hence, there can be more than 2 paragraphs in each body section of a braided essay.

Braided Essay Example

Topic: The Evolution of Communication (Critical Point): Traditional Letters, Telephony, and Digital Media (3 Threads)

Introduction

The evolution and development of communication is a historical reflection of human intelligence and societal progress. In this case, it is fantastic to see how far people have come from the simple act of writing handwritten letters to the introduction of the Internet. With each mode of communication, they see how different changes happen in all aspects of their lives. In particular, traditional letters, telephony, and digital media reflect speed, style, and societal changes, which is evidence of human progress.

Body Paragraphs

The Era of Letters

In the era of letters, communication was a deliberate, reflective process. For example, handwritten letters, crafted with care, were imbued with personal touch and emotional depth (Hinks, 2020). This mode of communication shaped a sense of intimacy and patience between a sender and a recipient, as people wrote their thoughts and feelings in physical papers, often waiting days or weeks for a response. As a result, the physical features of letters, with individualized handwriting and paper, created a personal connection between many people who could not meet together due to long distances but wanted to share their feelings and thoughts.

Emergence and Impact of Telephony

The invention and mass introduction of telephony as a communicational technology marked a significant shift in the human world. For example, with the telephone, conversations that once took weeks for letters could occur in real-time, bridging distances with the sound of a human voice (Behrendt, 2021). Basically, this revolution in communication changed not just how people communicated but also social dynamics. Telephone conversations offered a new form of connection, one that was more direct and personal than letters, but it lacked their intimacy and patience nature. In turn, this era of telephones saw the beginning of the transformation of communication from writing letters to private conversations.

The Digital Media Age

Nowadays, with the help of the Internet, digital media has taken a dominant position in all human societies, and it is characterized by its speed, diversity, and popularity. For example, emails, social media, and instant messaging via smartphones have changed people’s interactions, allowing global connectivity in one second (Balbi et al., 2021). Moreover, digital communication has a universal format because it supports text, audio, and video channels, improving the ways in which people connect. In this case, digital media has become a modern form of communication among its users, and it has replaced traditional letters and telephones in full. Hence, even if people are far away from each other, they can write letters or call their family members, friends, colleagues, or anyone they want.

The historical evolution from letters to digital media is real evidence of a dramatic shift in communication styles and human interactions that people have today. While letters suggested depth and emotional connection between senders and recipients, telephony allowed them to hear each other irrespective of distance. Furthermore, digital media helps people connect with each other anywhere in the world. In turn, each stage in the evolution of communication reflects changes in trends, values, and technologies. As a result, a better understanding of this evolution can provide new ideas into not just how people communicate but also the changing nature of social interactions and human relationships.

List of References

Balbi, G., Ribeiro, N., Schafer, V., & Schwarzenegger, C. (2021). Digital roots: Historicizing media and communication concepts of the digital age . De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Behrendt, F. (2021). Telephones, music and history: From the invention era to the early smartphone days. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies , 27 (6), 1678–1695. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565211028810

Hinks, J. (2020). The history of printing and print culture: Contexts and controversies. Midland History , 45 (2), 134–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2020.1767970

When writing a braided essay, it is essential to intertwine different narratives harmoniously. For example, to write a braided story, people alternate between multiple interconnected storylines or perspectives, allowing each one to develop while gradually weaving them together to reveal a unified theme or message (Miller & Wade, 2021). In this case, selecting correct strands that are distinctive and share a thematic connection at the same time allows authors to connect and contrast each other meaningfully. Hence, people should think about these 10 dos and 10 don’ts when writing their braided essays.

10 Dos Include:

Choose complementary strands.
Maintain clarity in each strand.
Use smooth transitions between threads.
Balance strands in a braided essay.
Highlight connections and contrasts.
Write about varied critical points.
Keep your audience in mind.
Reflect on a bigger picture.
Revise for cohesion.
Experiment with structure.

10 Don’ts Include:

Overcomplicating strands.
Neglecting transitions.
Losing a focus on a central theme in writing.
Using unrelated strands.
Disregarding a specific purpose of each strand.
Missing a balance between strands.
Providing non-connected critical points.
Repeating the information in a braided essay.
Forgetting to proofread.
Ignoring a braided narrative structure.

What to Include

Common Mistakes

Lack of a Clear Theme: Failing to establish a central theme can make a braided essay feel disjointed and confusing.
Weak Transitions Between Threads: Without smooth transitions, writing an entire paper can become fragmented and make connections between strands unclear.
Overloading Too Many Strands: Using too many narrative threads can overwhelm readers and dilute a paper’s focus.
Underdeveloped Strands: Not giving enough depth to each narrative can make individual elements feel shallow or incomplete.
Inconsistent Tone: Shifting between tones in different strands without purpose can disrupt an overall flow and coherence of a composition.
Forcing Connections: Trying too hard to link unrelated threads can feel contrived and weaken an impact of an entire writing.
Neglecting a Strong Conclusion: Not tying key points together at the end can leave a whole paper feeling unfinished or unresolved.
Ignoring Reader Engagement: Failing to create intrigue or curiosity can make an entire writing lack emotional or intellectual appeal.
Disregarding a Balance of Threads: Giving too much focus to one element over others can cause imbalance and make a paper feel uneven.
Poor Editing and Revision: Skipping thorough editing can lead to unclear ideas, grammatical errors, and disjointed flow between discussed strands.

A braided essay weaves together multiple narrative threads, each offering a unique perspective on a central theme. Basically, people use this structure in writing to explore complex ideas, blending personal stories with research, historical events, or philosophical insights. In principle, each strand is developed individually and alternated throughout an entire paper, with smooth transitions highlighting connections or contrasts. Further on, a braided structure deepens a reader’s understanding by covering different angles, ultimately creating a cohesive reflection. Moreover, concluding with a correct synthesis, an entire composition reveals how these intertwined narratives contribute to a deeper exploration of a given topic. In turn, some writing takeaways to remember include:

Select Interconnected Strands: Choose narrative threads that are distinct yet thematically linked, allowing for writing a rich and meaningful braided essay.
Develop Each Strand Fully: Focus on each narrative with enough detail and depth, ensuring each thread stands strong on its own while contributing to an overall theme of a paper.
Provide Smooth Transitions: Seamlessly intertwine your narratives, using thoughtful transitions to maintain a logical order of ideas and coherence of an overall essay.
Maintain a Balanced Approach: Give equal weight to each narrative strand, avoiding a dominance of one strand over others.
Highlight Connections and Contrasts: Use connections of different narratives to draw out and emphasize both similarities and differences, enriching a reader’s understanding.
Engage Readers Emotionally and Intellectually: Strive to connect with your readers on both an emotional and intellectual level, making your braided essay writing both thought-provoking and relatable.
Keep a Central Theme in Your Focus: Ensure that all narrative strands correspond to each other and explore a central theme of your paper.
Revise for Cohesion and Clarity: Use your time to revise your braided essay, focusing on improving its coherence, unity, and clarity.
Incorporate Personal and Analytical Elements: Blend personal narratives with analytical insights or research, suggesting a well-detailed argument or story.
End With a Reflective Conclusion: Conclude by connecting together various strands, offering a final synthesis that covers a central theme and leaves a lasting impact on readers.

Fleckenstein, J., Meyer, J., Jansen, T., Keller, S., & Köller, O. (2020). Is a long essay always a good essay? The effect of text length on writing assessment. Frontiers in Psychology , 11 , 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.562462

Girgensohn, K. (2023). Flickers of hidden meaning – Braiding essays as creative experience for academic writers. Journal of Academic Writing , 13 (2), 66–72. https://doi.org/10.18552/joaw.v13i2.802

Humble, R. K. (2023). The humble essay: A readable introduction to college writing . Chemeketa Press.

Miller, B., & Wade, J. M. (2021). A braided heart: Essays on writing and form . University Of Michigan Press.

Nisbet, G. (2024). Objects as armour; objects as container: Form and thing-writing as means of balancing disclosure in life writing. Life Writing , 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2024.2375648

Warburton, N. (2020). The basics of essay writing . Routledge.

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

Online Education and Traditional Classroom Learning: Differences and Similarities

Icon Calendar 17 January 2024
Icon Page 869 words

The Obesity Epidemic: Simple Lifestyle Changes for Better Health

Icon Calendar 13 December 2023
Icon Page 696 words

Resource Library
_Beta Reading
Publications
_Guest Blog Posts
_My Writing
_Writing Tips
_Writing Life
_Shelby's Thoughts
_Recomendations
__Audiobooks

Social Icons

How to Write a Braided Essay

Saturday, january 13, 2018 • writing tips.

What is a Braided Essay?

A braided essay is an essay that uses 2-3 events or topics to create an essay surrounding an event or question. Writers “weave” the “strands” (events or topics) together to form a “braid.” Sometimes when you say that out loud to yourself, it makes no sense. Therefore, let’s look at Joann Beard’s “ The Fourth State of Matter. ” Beard’s main strand is her narrative about taking care of her sick collie that is dying. Her first strand is dealing with the squirrels in her spare bedroom and the breakdown of her marriage. The last strand is the Iowa University Physics department shooting. These events are woven together to create one essay about an author’s inability to control the events happening in her life. Braided essays can have more or less than three “strands.” Essays have been known to have just two strands or four to five. The most important thing to note about braided essays is repetition of the braid “strands.” The repetition of these elements are what makes an essay braided rather than just a collage. If you place multiple fragmented events and don’t repeat them, you are making a collage, not a braided essay.

How to Construct a Braided Essay

The worksheet is pretty straightforward and basic. It by no means encompasses what your braided essay can be, but I thought it would be easier to go over a simple braid.

First you will chose the anchor of your essay, otherwise known as the main strand or core event. This can also be a theme if you’re exploring different facets of something. In Beard, her main core event is taking care of her collie. (You can also say it’s the shooting, I believe it’s open to interpretation, but either way this method works no matter what you choose as the core). With this core event, Beard weaves two other strands. The first other strand is the Beard’s failing marriage and the squirrels infesting her guest bedroom. This event ties in the collie because it is another thing Beard doesn’t have control over and can’t deal with on her own. You will need to choose another event that makes sense when related to your core event. Pick a longer scene or topic in order to continue the repetition pattern that has to happen. After choosing two events, you will need to pick one more to round out your essay and complete the braid. It doesn’t have to relate to the first other strand you chose, but needs to relate to the core event somehow. In “The Fourth State of Matter,” Beard talks about the Iowa University Physics Department shooting. This relates to the collie because Beard discusses the collie with her coworkers, but also later because of Beard not being able to save her coworkers and their own death she has to deal with. Again, the key here is the repetition. Beard is constantly weaving these events in her essay to create the braid. You must do this too, to create a proper braided essay.

More Inspiration and Examples

If writing braided essays intrigues you, or you enjoy reading the format, I have a few sources of inspiration to share with you. Along with Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” other braided essays include Biondolillo’s “ How to Skin a Bird ” and Redsand’s “ A Good Stranger .” Biondolilo’s “How to Skin a Bird” is a more fragmented version of a braided essay and discusses the author’s relationship with her daughter while instructing on how to skin a bird properly. Redsand’s “A Good Stranger” discusses the author’s religious identity, braiding Christianity, Judaism, and Navajo tradition. “A Good Stranger” is an outstanding example if you are looking to write on a theme rather than focus on a certain event. You can also find more information and other works to read on this website .

Finding Your Footing: Sub-genres in Creative Nonfiction

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Memoir is perhaps the “flagship” of creative nonfiction, the sub-genre most familiar to those outside of literary and academic circles. Most human beings lead interesting lives filled with struggle, conflict, drama, decisions, turning points, etc.; but not all of these stories translate into successful memoir. The success of the memoir depends on the writer’s ability to sequence events, to tell a story, and to describe characters in believable ways, among other things. Writer Carol Spindel reminds us that in the mid-2000s a scandal surrounding writer James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces erupted after he was forced to admit that large sections of his “memoir” were “fictionalized:” he’d embellished, made things up. A memoir that strays from the truth is not far removed from lying, because regardless of the writer’s intention, the story deceives the reader. Spindel writes that, unlike in novels, “The knowledge expressed in the memoir has the legitimacy acquired through first-hand experience.” Good memoir also provides reflection on the events that have happened to the writer, so it “can give readers insights into society, and even into the larger meaning of life itself” (Spindel).

The Braided Essay

The braided essay is a good tool for introducing writers—especially student writers—to the CNF genre. In a braided essay, the writer has multiple “threads” or “through-lines” of material, each on a different subject. The essay is broken into sections using medial white space, lines of white space on a page where there are no words (much like stanzas in poetry), and each time there is a section break, the writer moves from one “thread” to another. Braided essays take their name from this alternating of storylines, as well as from the threads the story contains; there are usually three, though to have four or two is also possible. Though there is not a strict formula for success, the form usually contains at least one thread that is very personal and based on memory, and at least one thread that is heavily researched. Often, the threads seem very disparate at first, but by the climax of the essay, the threads being to blend together; connections are revealed.

Topical Writing

Perhaps the genre closest to an essay or a blog post, topical writing is an author’s take on a given topic of specific interest to the reader. For example, nature writing and travel writing have been popular for centuries, while food writing is gathering steam via cooking blogs. Nature writing involves exploring the writer’s experience in a beautiful and thoroughly rendered natural setting, such as a cabin on a mountaintop. Travel Writing, as the name implies, details the writer’s experiences while traveling, whether by choice on a vacation or out of necessity due to business or serving in the military. Finally, contemporary food writing explores the writer’s connection to cooking and enjoying food of any variety. All three will occasionally step into the writer’s personal experiences via memories, but these episodes are always related to the topic driving the essay.

Whatever form a creative nonfiction piece takes, it must remain based in the author’s actual lived experiences and perceptions. Like academic writing, the piece must be accurately researched and the sources must be documented. Finally, the author must also always leave room to reflect on how their experiences have shaped them into the person they are now. It’s the reflection that makes the reader feel satisfied: it offers something to the reader that they can carry with them, a way of seeing the world.

Works Cited

Cokinos, Christopher. “Organized Curiosity: Creative Writers and the Research Life.” Writer’s Chronicle 42.7: April/May 2015. 92-104. Print.

Ironman, Sean. “Writing the Z-Axis: Reflection in the Nonfiction Workshop.” Writer’s

Chronicle 47.1: September 2014. 42-49. Print.

Spindel, Carol. "When Ambiguity Becomes Deception: The Ethics of Memoir." Writer's

Chronicle (2007): n. pag. AWP . Association of Writing Programs, 1 Dec. 2007. Web. 13

Sept. 2015.

Terrill, Richard. "Creative Nonfiction and Poetry." Writer's Chronicle (2004): n. pag. AWP .

Association of Writing Programs, Oct.-Nov. 2004. Web. 3 Oct. 2015.

The Braided Essay as Social Justice Action

The braided essay may be the most effective form for our times

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. The nouns in that sentence define nearly all of my writing. I write from a first-person point of view, from a place that defines and makes that “I”—I am as much Salt and Lake and City as anything. Salt is a place noun but, here, also acts as an adjective, describing the kind of lake. Salty also describes a kind of writing—irreverent, maybe even sailor-like. The lake part is misleading if it suggests to you potable water and schools of fish. This lake is undrinkable. Until recently, the city part also seemed inaccurate. Tumbleweeds still roll down State Street—street number one on the grid, a perfect square, each road big enough to turn an ox-cart around. The city seems more like a map of a city than a city itself.

Salt Lake City is an intense kind of place. The Mormon Church dominates most of everything—or at least it did while I was growing up. Or seemed to. My parents, having both been raised in the church, then having left Utah so my dad could go to grad school in New York City, thought Mormonism stifled their hippy ways. They would have stayed in New York, but the job market was weak, and my dad, a geological engineer, found a job with his grandfather’s drill-bit diamond company back in Salt Lake.

Geology, or at least the results of geological formations, brings a lot of people to Utah. Brigham Young, the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, after trekking up the Rocky Mountains, wended his way down through what is now called Emigration Canyon, saw the vast bowl that was Salt Lake Valley, and declared, “This is the place.” No matter that the big body of water—which would have suggested to any pioneer that this valley was a good place to start a new civilization—turned out to be full of salt. The mountain streams would supply the pioneers with enough water to turn this desert into a Midwestern oasis, with less persecution than they had suffered in Illinois and Missouri.

The glaciers that cut through the canyons of the Wasatch Mountains; the rivers that flowed between banks of granite cut by those glaciers; the water that irrigated farms and chchchchchhed out of lawn sprinklers; and the river Jordan, which collected all the canyon streams, and their attendant sewage and pollutants, into one and funneled the leftovers into the stagnant Great Salt Lake, were powerful forces. The Mormon Church, Manifest Destiny, and 19th-century Revivalist culture proved to be equally powerful at shaping those mountains and those rivers.

The church pushed, tucking rivers underground, turning a brown valley green, pumping water up and down and around the valley until it looked like a kind of Eden—a green Zion. Orchards and gardens, fountains and trees. Sometimes, though, the mountains pushed back. In 1983, 700 inches of snow, rather than the usual 300, fell. That spring, rain compounded the melting snow, and those ox-cart wide streets turned to rivers. As much as the Mormons had sculpted those mountains to fit their grid, the mountains took their turn to undo it.

What is creative nonfiction writing but the shaping and reshaping of self against fact? You take a personal story and give it syntax, grammar, language, punctuation. The simple fact of putting it on paper reshapes it. But now you’ve got to give it context, associate meaning to it. So next to that personal story, you set a paragraph about apples, or condoms, or chickens, or gun violence. Suddenly, your personal story is reshaped by these new facts, and the facts of your personal story cut into the hard statistics of your paragraph about imported apples or the failure rate of condoms.

The facts are the glacier to the soft canyon of your own history. You see the history newly. You see the facts a little more softly.

The geological forces that shaped Salt Lake City, and the work the church did to shape the geology, played out on the bodies and psyches of Mormon children. Or, at least, this child. Technically, I was Mormon if only by relation. My grandmothers were both LDS. My parents were both baptized although I never was. I went to church on Sundays only when I slept over at my grandma’s on Saturday nights. School was mostly fine, except when it wasn’t, or when my friends couldn’t come over to play because my parents drank wine, or when my friends went to after-school church activities like Mutual and I went over to the non-Mormon neighbor’s house where my body got shaped further by the neighborhood boys. At some ages, we’ll do anything to belong. In my book Quench Your Thirst with Salt , in an essay about a slide that happened after that 700 inches of snow melted and changed the landscape of many parts of Utah, and also about the hernia I developed from carrying my twin sisters around, I braided together scenes of land and scenes of body.

Symptom: I was showering in my mom and dad’s bathroom when my mom opened the shower curtain to hand me a washcloth and noticed the lump. She asked how long it had been there. I did not like her looking at my vagina. I told her as much. But she kept looking anyway. I told her I was OK and showed her my neat trick. If you pushed on the lump, it went away. I thought she would like that—it was a little like ironing—press it down and the protruding wrinkle goes away. She did not like it. She called the doctor.

Symptom: For a while, those floods transformed the riverbeds and the canyon floors, but the most dramatic changes came from underneath. As the water sopped into the sandy ground far above in the mountains, the underlying valley aquifers began to fill. The aquifer just above Thistle filled to the brink and then it bubbled over like any lid that tries too hard to hold the contents of its burgeoning cup. The land that capped the groundwater spectacularly split from the underlying ground and steamed right in to the town of Thistle. Thistle—dry, pokey, brittle. Nothing wet about it. Not usually. Not until 1983, when the rules changed and the lid was no longer tight enough and the cup no longer big enough and the whole side of the mountain shifted its weight up and over and then down on the town of Thistle.

How literally can you take the metaphor between land and the body? My body houses a number of species of mite and yeast and bacterium and occasionally another human body. A chemical imbalance of any sort can disrupt that number, but even if I manage to kill all the mites off of my eyelashes, if they were to go extinct all over me, six billion other human-planets would continue to sustain the very same species of mite. The Earth, though it may have six billion other brothers and sisters in the universe, as far as we know, is the only one to house anywhere from one-and-a-half to six million species on it. See how a body repairs itself. See how a planet does.

Reality is not my strong suit, which is rough for a nonfiction writer. Happily, the braided essay lets me pop in and out of different realities—not so much manipulating the facts as pacing them—and digest reality in drops.

Forces that shape your childhood parallel forces that shape the natural world. That should be an easy enough metaphor to make. But add toxins to the mix, and you have a ready-made drama on your hands. In Salt Lake, drought presses down from the parching August sky. Mercury and nitrates trickle downstream, layering the Great Salt Lake with bird-killing bands of poison. Oil refineries hidden behind the folds of the mountains spew layers of carbon, which combine with the parching sky to stave the clouds off. In Salt Lake, there used to be rain in August. Combine that dark narrative with a story about a girl who was born in that valley, whose friends weren’t allowed to come to her house because she wasn’t a member of the predominant religion. Add a trickle of paternal alcoholism and a band of sexual abuse. Press those layers together in memory’s time-lapse. Let them sit for a few years. Start writing. Start digging.

A problem for both memoir and nature writing is that some authors assume that nature and hardship inherently signify meaning: an addiction overcome must be meaningful; a bird, flying, must be meaningful.

I do think, depending on how you write it, that birds and addictions can make meaning, but I think meaning often lies in what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “first-rate intelligence”: the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time. The tension between two unlike things working against each other does, with enough stress and repetition, press out meaning.

Environmental writing, like any political writing, can be preachy, overly earnest, and super reverential. The authorial habit of invoking birds and trees and turtles, and imagining that just invoking these names conveys significance, can be off-putting to anyone who doesn’t think turtles or birds are inherently significant. As for critics of memoir, there’s a whole contingent of people who say, You’re only twenty-seven years old: how can you write a memoir? You haven’t even lived yet. You’re not famous. You’re not an addict. Your insights about life and living cannot possibly be significant.

In fact, it is memoir that offers something unique to environmental writing. By situating the self in the story, the writer personalizes what in some nature writing might come off as eulogizing and obvious. When I toggle between myself and the rest of the world, not only do I stop myself from boring myself with what I already know, I also find surprising commonalties with prairie dogs, or gutters, or the way geological formations seem permanent until they’re not, which reminds me that my bad habits or unattractive character traits, like writing about myself, are not necessarily permanent either.

The braided essay isn’t a new form. In fact, I think nearly every essay uses a kind of braiding—a New Yorker story about Bill Clinton’s fundraising skills, for example, toggles to scenes from his Arkansas childhood. But radical braiding is a foundation of creative nonfiction. The first book I read that I consider creative nonfiction was Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge . Braiding together stories of the Bear Lake Migratory Bird Refuge and her mother’s cancer, Williams develops the idea that environments, personal and global, are inextricably related: the way the cancer moves, conversations move; diagnoses, hope, healing, and death proceed as the plover, the seagull, and the long-billed curlew migrate.

Perhaps the braided form is most effective when the political and the personal are trying to explain and understand each other. The process of pulling together two disparate ideas allows for surprise. In an essay I wrote about geothermal power in Iceland, I asked the question: although geothermal power is a sustainable, green energy, is it infinite? Will the supplies run out? Research revealed that an overtaxed well could, in fact, run dry, and the power produced by that particular natural hot-spring could come to an end. In a parallel story, I got mad at my husband and stormed off, wondering whether or not a church on a hill was Catholic, and angry that he had made me walk there if he didn’t want to know. Neither of us would let the issue go. I wandered by the ocean long enough to make myself abysmally sad. I stayed gone long enough to get really mad. I came home and fell asleep on the bathroom floor. When I awoke, I couldn’t find my husband. I found him waiting for me across the street, letting it go, forgiving me. The essay led me to understand that our relationship might be elastic and strong, possibly infinite in its resources, but perhaps I should be cautious before I tax it.

The form of the braided essay embodies the subject of the essay. The braided form is one of resistance. The further apart the threads of the braid, the more the essay resists easy substitutions and answers. I write politically, but I have found that political writing is often shallow and ideological; in political writing I agree with, I often find nothing new, and in political writing I don’t agree with, I find nothing persuasive. I keep my Facebook friends close as we confirm each other’s beliefs, sarcastically commenting, “But her emails!” on every new political spectacle. We don’t even have to explain. But the braided form expands the conversation, presses upon the hard lines of ideology, stretches the choices beyond right or left, one or the other. Metaphor helps challenge the stultified pathways of our neural networks and test the elasticity of thought. Two ideas. One time. The brain resists new ways of thinking, but resistance is an important political tool. Resistance is the metaphor that will rule all other metaphors.

I tend to write in braided essay form, but in a recent essay about wolves, I took it to a different level. In this essay, I didn’t make so many explicit transitions. Instead, I used the research itself to catapult the essay’s questioning. I found “62 Interesting Facts about Wolves” using Google and considered how each one was really a fact about humans. If so many of the facts involve human-and-wolf interaction, can we imagine the wolf as a separate existence-worthy species? Or are wolves only a reflection of human fears, violent capacities, love of wilderness, ability to adapt? Should humans save them to save these elements of ourselves, or does wolf existence matter for reasons beyond its relationship to the human?

If the essay is a chalkboard onto which we scrape our ontological questions, then this essay fits right in. Who are wolves? Are humans wolves? Can facts exist without humans? If the wolf changes, does the very being of wolf change? As climate change and habitat loss force the wolf to breed with the coyote, do we lose not only a species, or even two species, but also a metaphor for how we understand ourselves? How is the wolf and human already a braided idea? If one is being eradicated, is the other? Or is it just the idea of the other that is eradicated?

Is braided form a broken form? Perhaps. If so, perhaps it is the form that best represents a broken self and a broken world. But there is also something reparative about the braided essay. The way one dips into one section of research, looking for that one right word to express the personal brokenness. As you stitch an essay together, you stitch yourself into the world. The world, stitched by you, is made more whole. I think it’s incumbent upon us to make a case for what we believe. I also think it’s incumbent upon us to check our beliefs against a prismatic understanding of facts. Humility and curiosity come from the same place. “How does the world work?” and “Who am I?” are two sides of the same coin. The personal story asks the reader to hear you say, Isn’t this what it’s like to be human? The research-based story says, See how being human is like being everything else in the world? Strange and wondrous. Wild and mutable. The job of the creative nonfiction writer is to say, Here I am world, and here is the world, and out of this oxymoronic writing, we are here to make each other.

Thanks for putting a name to Thanks for putting a name to a style of writing that I seem to naturally fall into. I can’t wait to read some of your essays. I so enjoy reading essays that explore a sense of place, and the myriad relations that grow from it.

The Braided Essay

The image of the braid is powerfully suggestive of attempts to reconcile threads that are sometimes difficult to reconcile. In this way, the braided essay can be a helpful teacher: an exercise in creative nonfiction that encourages non-linear storytelling. Three narratives are brought together by connecting words or images that puts the threads into conversation with each other. This can be a refreshing change of pace in the ELA classroom, where so much essay writing instruction is built around the five-paragraph essay rarely seen outside the classroom.

Off the Beaten Path The memory images so faded they appear to be edged in sepia, the echo of a character’s voice from something dear and dog-eared, the conversation fragments still playing in our heads on an unpredictable loop: bringing the flotsam and jetsam floating around in our minds into contact can produce new stories of self. In their book Beyond Literary Analysis , Allison and Rebekah describe how we can help students explore ideas by inviting them to sort evidence by categories. I love this suggestion because it asks students to identify connections while looking for footprints. The braided essay offers a similar opportunity by asking students to traverse memory lane by visiting it in a deliberately roundabout way. The braiding paves the way for exploratory writing that can help them see every thought and image as a new, possible fruitful connection. What may appear off-topic or loosely connected in a different type of essay is, in the braided essay, seen as worthy of further contemplation.

Before we wrote our braided essays, we studied three mentor texts. We looked at Brian Doyle’s essay to study explicit craft writing moves in prose, while we looked at Heather Swan’s and W.H. Auden’s poems to study the use of structure and allusion:

“Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle
“Victor” by Heather Swan
“Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden

The stated parameters for writing the braided essay were as follows:

At least one of the braid narratives should be personal and involve details from memory
At least one of the braid narratives should include factual information gleaned from research
Use at least three mentor text moves we’ve studied together (from “Joyas Voladoras,” “Victor,” and/or “Musée des Beaux Arts”) to help you build your narratives
Use connecting images, words, ideas or even events that can get these narratives to speak to each other as you braid them

Mentor Text Move: Repetition

A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird. (“Joyas Voladoras”)

Doyle’s essay is one that can be revisited endlessly for its delightful consideration of the hummingbird. As the reader is led through a maze of facts about this “flying jewel,” they began to realize that Doyle is talking about more than one thing at once: the hummingbird’s heart, the size of one’s heart compared to the interior chambers of the blue whale’s heart, the question of how one will spend their heartbeats in their lifetime. My students and I discussed how skillfully Doyle’s essay stages an animal encounter as an opportunity for self-confrontation. The roundabout path to the question of how one will spend their heartbeats was mapped out by the careful layering of facts, extended analogy, and use of repetition. We can observe how one of my students adopted these craft moves in one of her “threads”:

The repetition of the word, “Butterflies,” at the beginning of successive sentences mimics Doyle’s use of anaphora with the phrase, “A hummingbird’s heart.” Exploring the experience of introversion through the image of butterflies beautifully weaves the next thread’s reference to the words “floating” through her head – she recalls the times when she’s been asked, “Why are you so quiet?”. The poignant mention of how a human’s touch will erase some of the butterfly’s wing color, thus making it more vulnerable to predators, indirectly yet effectively suggests how an introvert may feel enervated after spending too much time interacting with others.

Mentor Text Move: End with a question

What war do we think / we’re winning? (“Victor”)

The braided essay is often woven by threads representing the past, present, and future. It occurred to us as we read and studied Heather Swan’s poem “Victor” that the present of the poem registered the process of disappearing – how bee populations are declining as a result of toxic pesticides. “Victor” is the brand name of a line of pesticides; by giving the name to the poem, Swan invites the reader to think about the cognitive dissonance involved with linking victory with chemicals that contribute to the decline of our precious pollinators. In one of his essay threads seen below, my student deliberately invokes the antithesis of “slowly” and “fast,” as he draws attention to the declining health of the global ocean. Much like the beekeeper in Swan’s poem, my student contemplates the deterioration of something inextricably linked to human survival. In his earlier thread, he makes reference to the coral composing reefs, something not frequently thought about but another example of a rapidly vanishing keystone species.

By ending his thread with a question – “Who will this really be hurting at the end?” – this student mimics the closing lines of Swan’s poem. This terminal placement has been a powerful craft move to imitate. Usually, my students reserve questions for an essay’s opening “hook.” Placing it at the thread’s closure keeps the conversation in play with the other essay threads and hammers the point that self-annihilation constitutes the void where other species disappear.

Mentor Text Move: Use a line from one of the mentor texts as a sentence starter

About suffering they were never wrong, / The old Masters: how well they understood

(“Musée des Beaux Arts”)

The pleasure of writing a braided essay can be found in abandoning non-linear storytelling about the personal – the pressure to plot a narrative onto a trajectory of unfolding points in linear time may create some artificiality in how the topic is being discussed. Instead, introducing a topic in the first thread of the narrative braid, then temporarily abandoning it in the second, only to loop back and pick up the thread again can be the circular motion creating a pressure valve that gives vent to difficult-to-express emotions. As I was thinking about which mentor text writing moves to practice with my students, my mind kept returning to W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts.” This ekphrastic poem embeds narratives: a myth (Icarus) is alluded to in a painting (Bruegel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”) that is described in the second half of Auden’s poem. The idea of nested stories is a helpful model to have in mind when trying to braid unwieldy elements and create texture. Most interestingly from my students’ perspective was how the embedded myth of Icarus – and the image of his fall from the sky – offered a cautionary tale about the limits of human ambition. As seen below, my student’s final essay thread begins by echoing Doyle’s description of the hummingbird flight, which is physically demanding. The image resonates with the description of the drowning Icarus in Auden’s poem, who tried to will an illusion – a boy who could fly with artificial wings – into existence.

My student cleverly weaves in the imagery for these nested stories as she ponders the transition from youth to adulthood – something Icarus was not able to do. By echoing images and lines in her braided essay, she contemplates her own coming of age story and how the journey began seemingly without hardship, “just cruising through time.” These echoes almost work like a musical riff, creating an expectation that you know where the writer is going. By incorporating the poem’s first line (“About suffering they were never wrong”) as a sentence starter for her concluding thought, she invokes the speaker’s thoughts about the skill of the painters whose works are displayed on the museum wall in Auden’s poem. The common experience of human suffering, so vividly expressed on painting canvas, is undeniable, but my student’s variation on the theme – “but what we do with that suffering is ours to decide” – circumvents an attitude of defeat and inevitability.

Writing braided essays mid-school year strengthened the sense of community in our classroom. For many teachers, personal narrative writing is reserved at the beginning of the year, when we’re trying to connect new faces with new names. Giving students the opportunity to express stories of self-identity in an exploratory, experimental manner during a time associated with all kinds of tumult was the right chord to strike.

How would you teach the braided essay in your classroom? How can we rethink the role of essay writing in school? Share your reflections in the comments below or find me on Twitter @dispatches_b222 .

At Moving Writers, we love sharing our materials with you, and we work hard to ensure we are posting high-quality work that is both innovative and practical. Please help us continue to make this possible by refraining from selling our intellectual property or presenting it as your own. Thanks!