College Essay Structure: Montage vs. Narrative – The Small Things Matter – (Part II)
Writing your college essay can feel really daunting but it doesn’t have to.
This is the second post in a series sharing practical lessons from my work as a college essay coach. In this post, I’ll cover:
A popular brainstorming activity
Essay structure: A side-by-side comparison of two different approaches to structure (Montage vs. Narrative)
Part I: You Matter More Than Your Essay Topic.
Use Small Things to Tell Me About the Big Things
Look around you, wherever you are. You're likely surrounded by items that hold some amount of symbolic value. They represent relationships, accomplishments, and positive character attributes. Some examples of “small things” that my students have shared to write about the “big things” on their college essays:
A Winnie-the-Pooh mug —-> life’s daily rituals
Turkey trot t-shirts —-> family traditions
Accountability mirror —-> commitment to personal development.
Ethan Sawyer has given these “things” a name. His Essence Objects Exercise is one of my favorite brainstorming activities to do with students and colleagues.
Essay Structure
In this section, I’ll share strategies for how to take those small things, organize them for a 650-word essay, and connect them to the bigger things.
Structure #1: Montage Essay
In a ‘montage’ essay you will write about different things that are connected to each other through a pattern or theme. (‘motif’ is another word for this). The writer organizes their story thematically. One benefit to this approach is that writers aren’t constrained by the relatively strict chronology of a traditional narrative essay. “A few images tell the whole story,” as Sawyer writes. Finding those moments “will ultimately provide the building blocks for your essay.”
Structure #2: Narrative Essay
The ‘narrative’ essay features more of a cause-and-effect sequence. (This happened. Then that happened.) It’s the classic storytelling arch. Here’s an adopted framework from Sawyer’s College Essay Essentials:
Status quo: This is how things were.
Inciting Incident: Something happens, and the “status quo” changes)
Raise the stakes /
Turning point / Moment of truth
Denouement/ Final Act
Outcome: New status quo.
Here is another way to look at it. Below are two student essays. The first fits into the Montage format; the second into the Narrative format.
Montage Essay: How to thematically connect small things to big things.
In the first essay, friendship bracelets are the theme – they are the small things to tell us about big things. (Read the full essay here as a reference.)
Event 1: Introduction into how to make a friendship bracelet
“The setup for creating each bracelet is identical: pick colors from the communal bag of thread, cut and tie them around a carabiner, hook the carabiner to your water bottle, anchor the bottle between your legs, and begin.”
Event 2: So what? (Why they’re important)
“When making the bracelet, you must always have a person in mind and a reason for gifting it to them. I have collected dozens over the years, and each one tells a story.”
Event 3: Bracelet A —-> unspoken rule in our community.
“My favorite, an ocean-themed chevron bracelet, is a reminder of a fundamental, unspoken rule: Backpackers never keep their traditions secret.”
Event 4: Bracelet B —-> leadership in crisis.
“For most, pastels are a lighthearted color. For me, they represent action in moments of danger.”
Event 5: Bracelet C —-> body’s physical and mental limits.
“Not all lessons come from moments of triumph. My green and purple bracelet reminds me of that.”
Event 6: Bracelet D —-> perseverance.
“The neon bracelet made by Alex is a reminder of a lesson in perseverance.”
Narrative - Events linked through cause and effect
This second essay has narrative elements and follows more of a storytelling arc. (Every essay is difference and they rarely fit singularly into one essay format.) Read the essay here.
Event 1: My community is covered in trash.
“Every Sunday, litter from the previous night’s outings encompass the sidewalks.”
Event 2: My bedroom was covered in trash, just like my neighborhood.
“My own room used to be covered in trash. At the end of eighth grade, empty soda cans scattered around my desk.”
Event 3: I joined the football team and excelled.
“So what changed? One day while scrolling through my Google Classroom, I clicked on ‘Fall Sports 2020-2021’ and found football.”
Event 4: Football taught me about hard work and discipline. I became more confident to explore new things.
“A few weeks later, in the blazing summer heat, I walked up to the locker room and opened the door to my new life. But this isn’t an essay about sports glory. I stopped playing the next year, though football taught me a lot about discipline, and helped me become more confident.”
Event 5: My room became cleaner.
“Now, my room looks a lot different. Art decorates the walls, instruments hang alongside them.”
Event 6: I wanted to make my community cleaner.
“If a cleaner space could help me, maybe I could do the same for my neighborhood, but I’ve realized it’s not that simple.”
Event 7: Insight into socioeconomic role in environmental quality of life
“When you spend as much time picking up trash where I live, you start to notice the same things: Liquor bottles and blunt wrappers.”
Event 8: Developed a passion for studying environmental science.
“For me going to college is an opportunity to learn how to make a clean environment more accessible for all people – regardless of where they live.”
To be clear: Your essay does not need to “fit” neatly into one of these categories.
To recap this article:
Make sure you try to find the small symbolic things to write about the bigger things in life.
Organize those things strategically into a structured formate for essay writing.
