2003 Student Responses
Essay LLLL:
The student gets off to a great start with a nice, concise opening paragraph. Close reading is used to convey the students ideas, starting right away in the first body paragraph when the student describes the first image we see of Gatsby to explain an effect the book has. The student keeps from summarizing, and does a terrific job at using quotes to illustrate his points. The use of quotes is especially remarkable considering that this is all drawn strictly from memory. His handwriting could be neater, but that's just a minor quibble of mine. The student keeps the essay well organized, and all of the main points are nicely wrapped up at the end. The student fully deserves his high marking.
Essay C:
Firstly, I really don't like that he restates the quote from the prompt in his own opening paragraph. That doesn't seem to bother the graders, but I didn't like it. And the essay in general is written rather simply. "This happened. This is why this affects that. Here's another point I have. That means this because reasons." The grader describes it as "workmanlike", and it's a pretty apt description in my opinion. The first body paragraph reads more like a summary than an analysis. It does connect back to the main points in the thesis in a few ways, but it's harder to find those moments than it should be. I almost want to say that this should be a 5, but the discussion of meaning holds up well enough that I'd probably give it a 6. A 7 seems pretty generous.
Essay FF:
The opening paragraph is concise, but it's too narrow and is pretty boring to read. The first body paragraph is also practically a summary, with the student only managing to barely connect it back to the thesis at the very end. There's just too much summarizing in general throughout the essay. But the first body paragraph provides the most glaring example along with the paragraph where the author simply describes the climax of the work, offering no analysis of it until later. The actual analysis is severely lacking because the student spends way too much time describing events in the book. I know way more about the plot of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest then I should. On top of that, the organization is lackluster. The student probably should have been awarded a 4. The grader must have been feeling nice the day he/she read this essay.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job reviewing these essays. If I were you I might add more examples of the essays and how they analyzed a text well. Specifically I might mention the literary devices the writers analyzed and discuss how those literary devices were used to create a meaning. Talking about how the essays' body paragraphs tied back into the thesis are good points, but you might want to take it a step further and actually provide evidence. I would agree with you about essay FF that summarizing the plot is not an acceptable form of analysis and am shocked that they were awarded anything above a 3! Also, in your analysis of essay C you didn't mention the analyzed text which you want to do so that you can provide specific reference, when giving evidence to the writer's analysis.
Kevin, I thought all three of your reviews were very good. I appreciated that you discussed how the authors did at addressing the prompt and then at the end gave a score for how you thought the paper was written overall. You discussed in the first essay that the author addresses the prompt without just giving a summary, and uses quotes to back up their claims. Addressing the prompt without giving a summary is a big part of having a well written essay. For the second essay, you pointed out that the paper is, as the grader said, "workmanlike," which I would definitely agree with. However, the essay still received a 7, because it for the most part addresses the prompt, which goes to show that the complexity of how an essay is written is less important than the content. This is something that the third essay lacked, as you pointed out that gave more of a summary of the book they chose than anything else. I think to improve your responses you could add more evidence from the student essays, but overall I think you did a great job!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I commend you on your use of the word "quibble". Your method of deconstructing the essays piece by piece makes this post very easy to read and digest. I completely agree with the point about walking out of FF knowing too much about the plot, given that I haven't actually read it. I, too, felt the opening to C was not terribly eloquent; I believe I insinuated that this one sounded a bit fill-in-the-blank-y, reflecting the "workmanlike" feel. The score on that one certainly shows us just how little very eloquent writing does compared to simple English and a complete prompt response. Only thing I can really say is that your LLLL and FF responses could have used some specific evidence from the essays, but, otherwise, these responses were clear and concise.
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