Focus the essay on a single experience in your life--one in which issues of language and literacy played a central part. For instance, you could concentrate on an early experience with reading or writing (when did what you read really start clicking in your mind? How did that affect you?), an experience with learning a different language (what were the ups and downs of trying to communicate in that language?), or an experience with learning the lingo of a specific subculture (how did learning to talk like a deadhead or a computer person affect you?). You might even focus on a negative experience with language, one in which you felt less than literate, one in which language actually got in the way.