Grade My Essay?

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1

<p>Prompt:
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
People use the term "wisdom" to mean many things. They describe someone as wise if that person is intelligent, well-informed, or capable of making good decisions. These descriptions, however, are not really useful in distinguishing wise people from unwise ones. Happiness is a better measure of wisdom: a wise person is a happy person. Even the most intelligent people should not be called wise if they are not happy.</p>

<p>Assignment: Is it best to determine how wise people are by how happy they are? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>

<p>Essay:
Of course, there will be never be a perfect correlation between wisdom and happiness. Nevertheless, those who seem to be burdened by foolishness or naivete are often lass happy than their wiser peers. By examining Frankenstein, the Enron scandal, this theme will become clear.</p>

<pre><code> Mary Shelley's Frankenstein brilliantly tells the story of Viktor Frankenstein's struggle with his demonic creation. It also tells the deeper tale of a man who is too proud to change his ways, which eventually leads to the destruction of his world. Time and time again, Viktor foolishly isolates himself from the companions that it is his duty to protect. As his beloved friends fall one by one, Viktor is unswayed and refuses to acknowledge his fault in their deaths. Truly, here is a man would could use a pinch (or a heap) of wisdom; it would certainly have lead him down a far happier path.

However, we can observe this relationship between wisdom and happiness in our own lives as well. One only has to reach back a decade to recall the disaster that was the Enron scandal. Over time, Enron had built up a steady practice of concealing liabilities through various accounting loopholes in order to keep the books in good shape. As the effects of this accumulated, many high-level corporate officials were blind - or at least, turned a blind eye - to the looming disaster. And oh, what a disaster! Literally overnight, Enron's stock fell from $90 to a mere buck. Later, Enron's bankruptcy claim showed that it was the profitable company to ever file for bankruptcy. Invariably, the destruction of this corporate giant caused immense amounts of suffering; the sentence was especially harsh to those who were not wise enough to avert this crisis before it occurred.

Thus, we can clearly see that a lack of wisdom leads almost inevitably to a desolate lack of happiness. The age-old adage is indeed true -- look among the wisest, and you will find the happiest.
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<p>*My own thoughts: *
The intro was a little bit messed up. I redid it at the very last second because I didn't have time to include my third example, so it has a couple of grammatical errors and whatnot. There are also some throughout the essay, but I don't think they affected the coherency too much.
Overall, the examples were not what I would have liked them to be. I meant to spend more time talking about the how exactly wisdom (or a lack of) led to unhappiness but that didn't happen. Instead, I spent more words describing the example itself which didn't help argue the prompt very much. At least I tied it back in the last sentence or two of each paragraph. </p>

<p>Also, I know it's late and most test-takers aren't likely to be on anymore. I just remembered about CCC and figured, "What the hell?" I would appreciate any feedback even if it's just a score. Speaking of score, I honestly think that this essay would get an 8 or so on the actual exam. Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>I wrote another one tonight for more practice. As before, I would be grateful for any feedback.</p>

<p>Prompt:
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.</p>

<p>We live in an era of individualism. The individual is celebrated and praised in every way—for being special and creative, for making an original contribution, for competing with others to be the best. Nowadays individualism is a guiding idea for many people and has many benefits. But focusing on individuals has caused us to neglect our sense of community, our feeling that we are part of a harmonious group. The importance of belonging to a community has been forgotten.</p>

<p>Adapted from Piero Ferrucci, The Power of Kindness</p>

<p>Assignment: Has the emphasis on individualism in our society caused people to forget the importance of belonging to a community? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>

<p>Essay:
Though a social critic may claim that individualism ostensibly destroys a community, the reality of the matter could not be farther from the truth. By examining boht modern literature and psychology, this will become clear.</p>

<pre><code> In Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Ender Wiggins is a pre-adolescent boy; he is also the brightest military commander known to man. Though the novel poses many interesting questions, it also details Ender’s emotional roller-coaster that is brought about by his isolation and friendships. Wiggins is undoubtedly a unique individual. However, his close circle of friends - his small community - is just as different as he is. There is no shortage of individualism in that group. Even still, the leaders in charge of Ender’s training make every effort to sabotage his work and relationships. Despite their continued efforts and Ender’s increasing self-knowledge as the story goes on, the young commander is overjoyed to be reunited with his team during the last phase of his training. After all those months of forced isolation and heightened individualism, Ender never lose the meaning of what it was to be part of a community.

We can also show that a strong sense of community is present by recalling Harry Harlow’s experiments in the late 1960’s. Obsessed with isolation of social animals, Harlow would seperate newborn monkeys from their mothers at birth. When reintroduced to a pack, these monkeys were entirely unable to interact with their fellow primates. This is what it truly means to have lost a “sense of community.” Clearly, human society has not yet come to this. Indeed, mankind is far from the state that Harlow’s poor “pets” found themselves in. In light of this, it seems likely that those who say that “the importance of belonging to a community has been forgotten” are guilty of gross hyperbole, if not an outright mistruth.

From the examples given, we can see that individualism and community can coexist well, as they do in Ender’s Game. Furthermore, man has not yet lost this ideal of community that holds society together. When the day comes that human beings are incapable of interaction, then only will we have forgotten of community is.
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<p>**My own thoughts: **
I think it turned out better than my last essay. I made a couple of grammatical/spelling mistakes (separate->seperate and untruth->mistruth), but overall the examples were more fleshed out and relevant. I butchered that last sentence though – no idea what was going on there. I felt less pressed for time on this one though.</p>