Sample Student Essays
(For Unit #1--The Literacy Narrative)
Sample Essay #1
High School was one of the most
exciting and at the same times the most boring periods of my life. During my four years at
high school I learned many things but nothing of what I learned would be more confusing
than the English teachers and English classes.
Freshman year of high school I had just moved from
Arlington Heights to Naperville. I had no friends and I was starting high school in about
three months. And as the days wound down to the start of the school year I had found some
people to hang around with and was beginning to feel more comfortable in this new
environment. But nothing would prepare me for that first day of school. I hadn't slept the
night before, for some reason that I could not figure out, but when it was time for school
I was actually excited to go to school. When the bus first pulled up to school my jaw
nearly hit the floor. It was the biggest school I had ever seen. It had three levels, an
atrium, and about twenty-eight hundred high-schoolers running around it. I was so lost
that I needed a compass to figure out which way to go. I settled into this new atmosphere
after a while and found out it wasn't so hard to find my way around. And as the year
progressed I became more and more comfortable with the people and environment around me.
Then came my English class.
English class that year was one of the best until
my teacher had to leave. She was a nice, down to earth, and caring teacher that always had
time no matter what was going on. She easily became my favorite teacher that I had in
school. As the year went on we read stories like Huckleberry Finn and Gulliver's Travels
and I really enjoyed reading these stories and if I had to write a paper on it I didn't
care, it was fun. She made the class fun with different costumes and discussions about the
readings we had. Then after the first semester my teacher had her baby and was not going
to be teaching us for the rest of the next semester. Her replacement was a substitute
teacher that was the total opposite of my last teacher. She was an old lady who didn't
like you to discuss in class about the stories we had read, like we had done before. The
papers we had to do were no longer fun because this new teacher didn't really inspire
creativity or enthusiasm in our writings. She wanted it done her way or no way. Her way
included no spelling mistakes, anything over three mistakes grammatically you would lose a
letter grade, and whatever length she said the paper had to be. If she said five pages and
you gave her four or even six she wouldn't take it because she wanted it to be five pages,
no more no less. That really started my downward slide with English teachers and English
class.
Sophomore year I had English class with some
of my friends and by then I was a real class clown in and out of the classroom. I had a
teacher that was as hard on attendance that he was on grammar and spelling. Either way you
looked at it, this teacher and myself were not going to get along. I was not an
experienced writer and could not find any interests in what he was teaching. At the time I
thought Greek mythology was the most boring thing I had ever heard of. So I goofed off in
class a lot and I also got kicked out of class for talking a lot. I never really learned
much in that class, probably because I spent so much of it in the hallway. But what I did
learn I never put to use. He taught us the five paragraph essay like I had never seen one
before. He liked to talk down to us a lot. He would talk slow so that we wouldn't
misunderstand a word he said. It sounded like he was talking to a baby. I don't think
anyone really took an interest in what he had to say but they paid attention because he
was the teacher and they needed that grade on their report card. The next year was the
best year in school I had ever had.
In my
junior year many new and interesting things happened. I started to drive to school now
instead of getting rides and I finally got a good English class. The teacher was
fantastic. She reminded me so much of my first semester freshman year English teacher that
if I didn't see the name plaque on her desk I would have swore it was her. This teacher
pushed all of her students to just do their best. She said that she had never failed a
student in her career in teaching. She used to say, "The only way you can get an F in
this class, is if you work at it. If you don't turn in the homework or the papers then you
are doing more work than if you just did them." I loved going to her class. We read
interesting stories about different cultures and races and I found all of this very
stimulating. My junior year of high school was the best year of English that I had ever
had. I finally learned a set form on how to write my papers and a way to think when trying
to write the different kind of papers that are thrown at you during your lifetime. I would
say that I have never learned more in one class than I did in that one. Then came senior
year and the troubles started all over again, but they got even worse.
My English teacher for senior year was a fresh out
of college, graduate student who had taught for a small amount of time at high school
level education. She had all these new ideas and forms on how to do papers. Well I had
learned the way I wanted to do papers last year and I wasn't about to change my style of
writing for her. She disagreed. She told us that all the writing that we had learned in
our first three years of high school English were wrong and that we were going to write
papers a new way, her way. She started to preach about this concept of the hook , warrant,
and conclusion style of writing. She had told us that it is what she expected to see and
that was the only way that she wanted the papers to be. Well I found myself sitting in
this class thinking this is going to be second semester freshman year all over again. Also
that I am not going to like this teacher and I'm going to spend most of my time outside in
the hall like sophomore year. But I couldn't do that. This was my senior year and I needed
the English credit to graduate. I didn't fully understand that concept then so I did the
one thing I thought would be right. I stayed out of her hair and she stayed out of mine.
That didn't work. I wrote my first paper and when it came back it had a big, red D- on it
and in big writing across the top it said "This is not the way I want it." Well
I had about enough of this lady and her new teaching style that I could handle so I got up
and walked out of class. In fact, that day I didn't stop walking. I walked right out of
class, right down the hall, and right out of school. I was so frustrated that I had to
leave school to escape going crazy in that room. After that I had found that it was much
easier to not be in class than it was to be in class. So I decided not to go. That turned
out to be a very bad decision on my part. I started to cut class and go home or out with
my friends instead of going to class. The teacher felt "that my actions in and out of
the classroom had proven to be grounds for my dismissal from the class," is what the
report said. What this lady had just done was reduce my chances of graduating to little to
none. I had been dropped from English and I had no hope of graduating with my friends or
my class. Then my guidance counselor bailed me out of one of the worst I had ever been in.
She had a correspondence course that seniors in English could use if they had not filled
that requirement. I wanted to graduate very badly and I would have done anything to
accomplish that. So I wrote the seven papers that it required, yes seven, for that last
semester and I graduated with my class.
Graduation was one of the best times of my life,
so far. It was so much fun to be there with my friends and standing up and graduating with
my class. To also hear my family ad older friends yell and scream when my name was called,
it was just such a rush. If I had to do it all over again I would have probably not
changed a thing. Probably because those failures had taught me a life long lesson.
Some things to think about:
- The persona/ethos created here. Do you find this student credible? Do you
sympathize with him/her? Why or why not?
- What did this student learn from his/her experience?
- Did this writer explain how the experiences affected/changed him/her?
Sample Student Essay #2
Looking back on when I was
younger, I had an interest in reading which in turn spawned an interest in writing that
I've seemed to have lost over the years. Sometime in second grade, I came in contact with
plays which interested me much more than just reading some ordinary story, article, or
book. It allowed for me to create a character instead of just reading.
When I was in second grade I attended S.S. Peter &
Paul, which was a Catholic school. The uniform of the day, as every day, was a light-blue
short sleeve shirt and navy blue pants. During the winter, it was long sleeve with a navy
blue sweater. Black tennis shoes were the shoes I wore, but you could've worn white if you
wanted to. The thing about my pants though, is that my mom couldn't hem pants worth a
damn. So I ended up wearing high waters til she got it right. I remember having some teeth
missing that year and ghostly white, blond hair. To look at my hair today and in second
grade at age seven, you would've never thought my hair would've been so blond.
That year,
in October, we read a play that focused on Halloween. The characters were Count Dracula,
Frankenstein, the Mummyman, and Wolfman. I was excited at the opportunity to be a
character in the short play. Enthusiastically, I shot my hand straight up into the air
every time a part was read off by the teacher. At that age, your arm is weak and since you
want the part, you support one arm with the other by putting one hand on the other arm's
elbow. You lean the support arm's shoulder on the desk and tilt your head.
"Frankenstein," she said, "Who to play that role? Let's
see…Michael." Yes, I got a role to play and I was gonna play the part as well as
it could be played. Such determination at that age. As the teacher finished selecting the
other students' roles, I was thumbing through the pages to see where my first part was.
Ahh, there it is!
As the story began, all the students were reading their parts as
themselves and not as the character to which they were assigned. The Count had no accent,
the Wolfman had no snarl in his voice, and the Mummyman had no…whatever. The play
seemed boring and uninteresting and the characters had no life or emotion. I felt that
something was wrong and the play wasn't getting its justice. I mean, all the movies on
television showed Frankenstein to speak slow and unclear. His speech was broken and his
voice was deep. If that is what the character of Frankenstein is like, and since I am
acting like him, then I should imitate him.
As my part came around, I made the decision to play the part
assigned to me as I felt it should be read. So in the deepest monotone voice I could
muster, I read my part slow and deliberate for my classmates. As I read, the whole class
started laughing hysterically and continued on a little while after I was done. I didn't
expect the laughter, but I was laughing too. The reaction I got to the way I read made me
want to keep reading the part that way because it sparked a reaction, good or bad, in my
peers.
When the short play was done, my teacher complimented me on the
way I brought my character across. After that, I couldn't wait to read another play. I
wanted to become a different character and read it aloud. I felt challenged to spark a
response again, but as a different character. I didn't necessarily need laughter, just
another compliment from my teacher or some of my classmates.
That first experience with plays helped to launch this creative
force within me. I had written some short stories before, but most of the time they were
about things that I saw on television and ideas were formulated on paper relating to what
I saw. Around fifth grade, I switched from Catholic to a public school. In addition, I
relocated to another town far from my friends. The adjustment was kind of tough because I
became the new person to tease; fresh meat. Not to sound like a lady's man or anything,
but the girls gave me a lot of attention. "Will you go out with so and so, she really
likes you" was heard quite often. This provoked the guys to hate me. The new guy
getting our attention. So faced with no one to play with after school, till
everyone got to know me, I started to write a long story; longer than any before.
I sat down
and started writing something from my imagination this time. (This first real
creative burst early on encouraged me to draw in later years.) So far, most of the ideas
were from what other people had imagined. I wanted something original that I conceived and
no one else thought of. From time to time, I sat down and wrote a story about a warrior.
In the story, the character battled the forces of evil, as all heroes do, to protect his
home world. He battled beasts, warlords, and demons that were sent by his arch-enemy, who
was bent on destroying his home world. Little did I know, the concept of a story like this
was nothing original. I continued with that idea, perhaps, I could turn this story into a
comic book publisher to sell on magazine racks or news stands. I figured at this age, the
caliber wasn't any higher than that of a comic book. I also thought it would be cool to
bring the mental images of my characters to life in pictures.
It seemed as though every day for a long time I would come
home and write about my make-believe character and the adventures he had. The grammar and
punctuation within the story were in great need of improvement. The whole story was one
complete paragraph. I had no kind of format, but I stressed what was going into the story.
One day, I decided to take a break from writing to see what I had down on the pages. I
really didn't want to break from my original focus, so I checked the content carefully.
After some forty or fifty pages, I also wanted to correct all those grammatical and
punctuation errors.
As I read what was on the paper, I began to lose faith in
what I had written because I was constantly thinking of what people would say whenever
they read it. Thoughts like that made me feel that maybe it wasn't all that good after all
and that it was a waste of time even to have written it. I decided to let Mom and Dad read
it, to see where I stood with some sort of audience. In the long-run, that was a mistake
because they were going to support their child's creativity. So needless to say, their
opinions didn't officially count for too much. I wasn't gonna dare show my "so-called
friends," most of whom to this day I could give a damn about, to open myself up for
more ridicule. "This is no good." "This sucks." "There is no
action-adventure in it." "Your dumb for doing this." The thought crossed my
mind to let my teacher read it. She would know what to say. I had second thoughts and
didn't. I figured that she didn't have the time, she would laugh me right out of the room,
or she would have gone off with grammatical fury. The thought of my story becoming a comic
book, or anything for that matter, diminished as my worries overtook my creative spark.
I made sure that the story would never be read by
anyone by burning it in an aluminum trash can in my backyard. I thought to myself, as I
watched the story dissipate into the atmosphere, what a waste. I hated myself a little for
taking all that energy and reducing it to gray snow. I would've probably hated it more
when the kids laughed and joked for years to come, if I would've let them read it. The
glow of the creatively enhanced flames confirmed that would never happen. My creative
writing came to a screeching halt that day at an early age. I haven't had a second thought
since then on doing any creative writing other than letters to friends and relatives.
Analyzing that moment, that is why I didn't like writing because of what I thought people
would say. The repercussions of the story potentially being read caused me to stop writing
creatively.
Although the writing stopped, the creativity
didn't. I still felt creative but, I sure didn't want to write anymore. One day, I began
to draw and I am really good at it. There doesn't exist the hesitation to show my drawings
to people. I love to draw! It seems in drawing, you are making a fabrication or duplicate
of life. Whether it is an inanimate or animate object you are drawing, it is something
that has been seen before. The twist might be different, but that is where creativity
comes into play. If a drawing is criticized, I really don't care because I know that I did
a good job on it anyway. If your writing is criticized, then your feelings are being
criticized and you can't help but to get emotionally upset. It affects more than just
starting a new drawing over. Maybe, if I hadn't lost the interest in writing, I wouldn't
have found the creative gift for drawing. Who knows?
In reference to reading, high school curriculum played an
influential role in stirring up my interests in plays again. The void from reading between
when I was younger and high school was filled with moments of sports, recreation,
television, and anything else that didn't require reading or writing. My father was very
big on sports, as were my brothers, and this filled those years with team activity. As I
grew, my interests shifted to things involving outdoor activity, for the most part.
Whatever the sport, I was involved in playing it. If I wasn't playing in a league, I was
in schoolyards or backyards getting down and dirty playing football, baseball, basketball,
hockey, etc. Whenever I was at home, the television was always on, so there was no need to
read. There was always another alternative to reading or writing.
When I got into high school, I was introduced to a higher level
of plays because this kind came from the master playwright himself, Shakespeare. I wasn't
too interested in it at first, but the more I read, the more fascinated I became. These
plays were more in-depth, with more characters and a well-rounded plot to follow. The
first play introduced to me was "Romeo and Juliet" wherein I had the
opportunity to play multiple roles. Some parts were small and some were large. No matter
the character, I was completely interested because I always became caught up in the
reading of plays. The acting-out, as if I was there, formed mental pictures of what the
characters looked like or the surroundings they were in. The language and style of the
play caught my attention quite a bit, even though the words were hard to interpret. The
challenge in reading Shakespeare is to translate the text into words that you can
understand in order to get meaning out of it. When I read plays, it is like decoding a
secret message that when decoded, you understand and can relate to the story-line.
Later on in the year, we read "Hamlet"
which was better than "Romeo and Juliet" in my eyes. The plot was thicker
than the love story. It involved love but, also, deception, murder, insanity, and so much
more. It inspired me to watch the movie when it came to the big screen. The thing about
reading plays is that you really need to read carefully in order not to miss any of the
hidden messages. The interest in reading plays triggered ideas in my head to audition for
some of the plays put on by my high school. I never followed through with it because of
the same fears as when I thought about letting my teacher read it or my friends.
Today, I don't mind letting people read
whatever I write. My attitude towards it being read is pretty much if you don't like what
I wrote, tough shit! The creative writing I was involved in as a kid has elevated to a new
level as I see it. The stories aren't about a warrior or saving worlds, but more about my
feelings on things in general. I don't mind expressing my opinion as long as I am
knowledgeable about the topic. Deep thoughts or emotions, however, remain just that. I
don't care to share any deep down emotions or feelings with anyone but who I choose. I
save that stuff mostly for my girlfriend, family, and friends. But what I share on a daily
basis, I will put on paper for all to see. The experiences I've had in the past with
writing have molded me into the person I am today. I am cautious of what I say and who I
say it to. I don't fear what people think of what I write cause I am in control of what is
being said. What they don't know can't hurt me.
Some things to think about:
- The persona/ethos created here. Do you find this student credible? Do you
sympathize with him/her? Why or why not?
- What did this student learn from his/her experience?
- Did this writer explain how the experiences affected/changed him/her?
Return to Unit Plan
Return to Compu/Comp Page
|
