My experience with writing Essay Number One was an unexpected rollercoaster. I was so intent on ensuring everything was perfect. I wanted to include every quote seamlessly without skipping a point in the outline so badly that I forgot what the substance of the Sample Essay was really about. I had slipped up on something I should have noticed all because I wanted to make sure that I did the essay on time and that it made complete sense, grammatically. So I realized that sometimes I need to step back and take my time with my outline at first and not overlook the pre-writing assignments as just part of my homework but rather as a stepping stone for what my essay will consist of. This will change my approach to writing essays for the rest of the semester because for one, I haven’t written an essay in a long time and I feel a lot more comfortable now, and two, I think I finally got my rhythm of how ill be setting up my essays and to ensure I won’t procrastinate write a paragraph day by day so I can take time with my thoughts. I’m very excited about the next essay and I hope that my revision for the first essay is better than the last.
Liliana Cisneros
“Knowledge is Power” is what I would title the essay to my interpretation of the short story “The Lesson” by Toni Bombara. In the short story, we learn about Sylvia and her block friend’s trip with Ms. Moore and how one rip in their reality can cause them to believe there is more to them than where they come from. Sylvia is first presented in the story as someone who knows exactly who she is and has a good understanding of how the adults around her move, so there’s nothing that surprises her as she is a brilliant and observant young girl and won’t change for anybody, not even Ms. Moore. That is until she is given this new perspective in life, how the World around her is a lot more unforgiving than it seems, and how she has been dealt a poor hand for no other reason than losing the lottery in life to gain better opportunities. From there on she is angry with her new reality and how her small world has been ripped from her hands by Ms Moore but, it is not for nothing. It wasn’t just some painful experience Ms Moore wanted to inflict on these children but rather drive them to reach for more than their surroundings. I’m glad I see this in the final sentence where Sylvia announces how “ain’t nobody gonna beat” (Bombara) her at anything, the lesson that Sylvia was trying so hard not to embody and detest ironically, ignites a fire in her.
My understanding of the pre-writing assignment is that we will be using all 3 resources provided to us, “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “The Overview of “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Dean Rader, and the sample student essay to formulate the foundation of what will ultimately guide us to write essays efficiently and as smoothly as possible. As long as all 3 resources and the supporting guide posted on week 1 are used it will allow me to formulate my thesis statement and compose a strong essay. As well as to properly write an essay, as stated in step 3 of the pre-writing assignment, by following activities 5, 6, 7, and 8 which include sources as how to follow proper MLA format and quoting primary/secondary sources correctly, The purpose of the pre-writing assignment is to break down the story by Gabriel Marquez and use the resources provided to us so we can layer the similarities within each theme of our primary and secondary sources to create our main idea.
