English Composition

English Composition Study Guide

©2018 of 84 Average Response Analysis: The essay is structured in a logical manner and begins with a strong introduction. The body paragraphs transition smoothly, and use textual support to prove the points outlined in the thesis. However, the thesis is slightly off topic, with a focus more on emotions showing Mrs. Mallard’s cause of death rather than the use of literary devices employed by the author to discuss themes of freedom and marriage. While the writing does mention freedom and marriage, the points are not as clear as they should be, and lack the in-depth analysis and explanation to help the reader see how the textual examples are answering the prompt. The writing would have been stronger if the second and third body paragraphs focused more on literary devices, using examples from the text on how they helped to promote the themes of the short story. While the essay is five paragraphs in length, it lacks true analysis and support to fully answer the prompt. Weak Response Example: Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour,” started off sad, but ended up happy, sort of. The poem is about a woman with a damaged heart. When her husband dies (spoiler alert: she thinks he does) everyone is affriad to tell her because her heart is so weak. She finds out though and refuses to feel sorry for herself and is going keep living her best life. That is when her husband comes home, and surprise, it was a false alarm. In shock she ends up dying herself because she has a week heart. It’s okay though because the doctor said, “she dies of the joy that kills”. So, she probably was okay with it, but her husband and sister were probably sad. Chopin takes through a lot of emotion with her poem and used a lot of descriptive words (imagery) to get the point across. “It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.” So her sister knew she had a weak heart and was afraid the news would kill her (spoiler alert: it did – kind of) so she was trying to say it as delicately as possible. The problem though is Chopin was pretty wordy and needs to learn to get to the point. For example, “But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky.” We get it she was in shock and not really looking at anything. So basically Chopin is using too many descriptive words. Chopin used some other literary devices too like repetition, “She said it over and over under hte breath: ‘free, free, free!’ “ She says over twice and free 3 times. I don’t think she was being descriptive there. She was probably getting paid by the word. She also uses personification when she says, “But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.” An emotion can not creep out of the sky only people and animals can creep. So she was describing an emotion using people actions. Chopin was not a good author. She made us feel sad for the husband, but then tried to prank us. That was not very nice. Also, I don’t like the main character. She is very self-centered and needs to learn the world does not revolve around her. I mean everyone was afraid to tell her that her hubby died, but what about all the other people in the accident? Hello, she was not the only family effected. Then when her husband comes home all “hey, honey” we don’t get to hear how his friend, her sister, and he felt about the wife dying. Also, if she could have this ephineny that life was all fine and dandy then why was her heart so weak? Is she strong or not? The author really didn’t do a good job explaining thigs considering she used so many words. Achieve Page 68