pls grade my essay out of 6

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Many people deny that stories about characters and events that are not real can teach us about ourselves or about the world around us. They claim that literature does not offer us worthwhile information about the real world. These people argue that the feelings and ideas we gain from books and stories obstruct, rather than contribute to, clear thought.</p>

<p>~ Adapted from: Jennifer L. McMahon, "The Function of Fiction"</p>

<p>Can books and stories about characters and events that are not real teach us anything useful? 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>Many people claim that fictional stories cannot teach us anything useful, but evidence from literature and life show that this claim is fallacious. In fact, fictional stories teach us about ourselves and the world around us so they are indeed very useful.</p>

<p>In Bessie Head's When Rain Clouds Gather, the characters and the events that took place show that fictional stories are useful. Characters like Makhaya and Gilbert teach us about how important education is in order for development to take place. This can be seen in the way their education on agriculture helped the Batswana people discover irrigation and crop rotation which helped them improve the economy of Batswana. Also, Paulina's son dying from tuberculosis while at his cattle rearing post teaches us the level of poverty and death in certain areas in Africa. Furthermore, the coming together of the Batswana people like Maria, her father, Paulina, Makhaya and Gilbert teaches us the importance of working together as a team to achieve a required goal because their cooperation led to the development of Batswana.</p>

<p>Likewise, in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, we learn about the importance of cooperation from the chaos that erupted when the boys on the island spilt and refused to cooperate. In this book, the characters of Piggy and Simon teach us about the importance of intelligence and insight because Piggy and Simon were always the voice of reason in the book. Also, we learn about man's inhumanity towards man and the evil that exists in every man by the change of characters of the boys from being innocent little boys to being savages who kill one another. We also learn the importance of good leadership from Jack and Ralph.</p>

<p>In short, fictional stories are very important and useful because they are very didactic and teach us essential morals and facts about human beings and they world around us.</p>

2

<p>A little bit short but clearly and cogently written…</p>

3

<p>Okay. Thank you . Any other opinions??</p>

4

<p>You really need to be making the claim that the fictional stories are teaching us something about humanity. Ideally you’d make the case that they are revealing things in a way that non-fiction cant. </p>

<p>Irrigation and crop rotation, poverty and death in certain areas in Africa, those are encyclopedic facts. Working together as a team, importance of cooperation, importance of intelligence, importance of leadership- those are all platitudes because you havent made specific cases. </p>

<p>You are taking stabs at too many different things to be convincing. </p>

<p>Your strongest evidence is “evil that exists in every man”. It would be hard to make this case as powerfully in non-fiction- even given a narration of the horrible deeds of a serial killer or death camp guard, the public would just assume that they were just an isolated case warped from the beginning. Instead, the novel format allows Golding to get the reader to identify with the boys. They are just schoolboys, all innocent, some types we like more or less but all recognizable. That is what makes the resulting violence, and realization of the capacity for evil in everyone far more jarring and impaction that it would have been as a non-fiction essay. </p>

<p>You should have spent time developing this point instead of giving a lot of weak examples.</p>

5

<p>I’d give it a weak 4. The essay shows potential, but you need to prove your point better. </p>

<p>It starts out well. I really like your intro and the first sentence of the next paragraph. The rest of that paragraph needs to show how specific people learned from the novel in your example and improved their lives. Similar situation with your second example. You seem to be citing generalities from both novels instead of answering the question very specifically. I don’t like the word didactic in the conclusion - it seems forced. I’d also like to see the conclusion a little longer, tying together your examples and making an interesting observation that is consistent with your thesis.</p>

6

<p>Thank you argbargy and CHD2013. So are you saying that it would have been better if I just picked one thing from each of the novels and described how it is useful rather than just naming a bunch of things that the two novels teach?</p>

7

<p>You need to have reasons why novels can teach us ‘useful things’ in ways that non-fictions cant. Then the examples back up those reasons. </p>

<p>So maybe your reason is that the close perspective of novel writing has the reader much more involved with the subjects than non-fiction articles and essays would. If we want data about irrigation and crop rotation the encyclopedia is a much better place to turn than a novel. </p>

<p>But if we want to understand the human impact of a failed harvest the novel will be far more impactful than a column of figures in a gazette.</p>

8

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<p>Bingo.</p>

<p>Your body paragraphs function as short summaries and (even shorter) analyses of stories. </p>

<p>This isn’t the task. The question doesn’t ask you to pick two novels and tell what we learn from them.</p>

9

<p>Okay. Thank you. I understand now</p>