No one is reviewing my essay on the Student Board :(

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/29/05 at 10:02pm

"Children can only grow, from something you love, to something you lose," is a quote from the Broadway musical, Into the Woods. It was said after Rapunzel, the Witch's adopted daughter, died from heartache after her husband abandoned her. This was not an original concept. Grief over a loved one's death has existed since time itself, and many have written about it. This theme of loss of one's own children is shown throughout two of the plays featured in Nine Muses, by Wim Coleman: Phaeton and the Sun Chariot and Demeter and Persephone.
Whenever I do something brainless, my parents say "Everyone makes mistakes. Let it go." Unfortunately, some mistakes can be fatal. In Phaeton and the Sun Chariot, Helios made an awful mistake by telling Phaeton he would grant him one wish of anything he wanted. He had never raised a child and did not know what to do, so he did whatever would make his child and his fans happy. Sadly, what people want most is often the worst for them. Phaeton's request killed him, and Helios had to live with the knowledge that he indirectly killed his son. This caused incredible grief and caused Helios to decide to stop driving the sun chariot. Although he ended up returning to the chariot due to the world's need for him, the grief he had felt affected him deeply and he drove again, a changed god.
Demeter, in Demeter and Persephone, was more similar to the Witch aforementioned. In Into the Woods, the Witch locked Rapunzel in a tower and tried to prevent her from learning about the negative aspects of the world, as shown by lyrics she sung, "Stay with me, the world is dark and wild. Stay a child while you can be a child." That was also Demeter's philosophy. She did not teach Kore (later Persephone) about pain and fear, and although the circumstances of her departure were different, the grief Demeter felt was the same as the Witch's. They both lost their children because they raised them to not know bad things about the world. After Kore disappeared, Demeter lamented over Kore, feeling grief over her daughter's disappearance, and guilt for not teaching her better.The world plunged into bleakness because of her sorrow, and even now it affects us. Winter draws near, which means that soon Kore will return to the depths of Hades and Demeter will be back in mourning. Although Demeter's bereavement had more lasting effects than Helios', both changed the world for a time because they were (or in Demeter's case, still are) mourning over their children and the mistakes they made with them.
Do you want to know what happened to the Witch at the end of Into the Woods? Her grief makes her decide to abandon the people who need her help, and she disappears right before the show ends. She returns during the finale to sing her last song, about teaching children the right way, because if you teach them the wrong way, even with the best intentions, they will be hurt, as shown by the lyrics "Children will look to you for which way to turn to learn what to be. Careful before you say, 'Listen to me'….children will listen." That quote was prominent throughout Phaeton and the Sun Chariot and Demeter and Persephone, and exemplified their grief even more because the bad things that happened to their children were indirectly their fault. I have heard it said that no emotion is more powerful than a parent's love and that proved true throughout Nine Muses, when the parents' sorrow changed the world.


I found a way to incorporate Into the Woods into an essay about a series of plays based on Greek myths. Plese critique it harshly, but remember I'm in 9th grade.

[Chloe]

Posted: 10/29/05 at 10:26pm

I think it's quite a good essay for a ninth grader, but it's a little hard to read. Spacing between paragraphs, and possibly breaking it up into shorter ones, would help.

Maybe you could sum things up a little more at the end by going back to your first point about how modern theater and ancient myth are dealing with the same issues.

I liked how you brought in the example of what your parents say to you.

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/29/05 at 11:42pm

Thanks!

1. Spacing is due to the fact that I was too lazy to reallign it for a message board.
2. My English teacher told us NOT to sum anything up, which sorta frustrates me.

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:39am

Ouch. Someone on M.Net just said they'd give me a C.

[ElphieDefiesGravity]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:41am

What was the prompt, exactly?

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:49am

Prompt for what? The comment or essay?

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:50am

Prompt meaning the "question"

What the essay is supposed to be about.

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:54am

Ah. Being up for 16-ish hours can frazzle me, as you see. The question-it wasn't really a question, I chose the topic of how grief was illustrated in Nine Muses.

[thetheatrekook]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 1:15am

random nitpicky question...wasn't Rapunzel killed by the Giant?

[cathywellerstein]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 1:19am

she was. she committed suicide because she suffered from postpartum depression by running to the giant.

[JayKid]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 1:01am

I'll start with some good things.

You have a decent thesis. So at least you have an idea consistent throughout.

Now on to some bad things... first things first

Drop the quotes, they weaken your essay--a lot. ESPECIALLY just in places that don't make any sense. If you have a quote, it ALWAYS needs to be sandwiched (take this info, it's good info). By sandwiched I mean this: Take the quote (if you decide to quote and not paraphrase, it better really relate to what the paragraphs point is and be strong) and set it up, have a few sentences of intorduction leading up to what the quote is, than (as you did) introduce the quote. After the quote, explain, explain and than what? Explain. You need to than support the quote with your ideas and than, in this case (since it's ya intro paragraph) your main thesis.

This works with ALL quotes. When you just throw them in there, they weaken your writing, not strengthen it, trust me. So if you feel that the lyric is really needed (I don't really think it is, but that's my opinion... I don't like any of the quotes), keep it, but remember to sandwich it. Also, I'd say get rid of the other quotes as well.

Next thing, the Into The Woods things is really unorganized IMO. Also your second to last paragrph to conclusion hasa horrible transition.

Into The Woods is summarized in one sentence (the concept of grief over a loved one is) and it is out of nowhere, and will leave any readers (like myself) going what the hell? If you are going to introduce Into The Woods as something you want to tie into X and Y, it needs it's own paragraph, not just 2 sentences in the intro and 2 in the conclusion with some not so great quote, stuck in an awkward spot. So, it really leads to a feeling of unorganization throughout with the weird intro.

Btw, just a quick note, vary sentences... you do it at times, but just to give you that ponter. Vary them in length, from very short and simple, striaght the point, to complex. Use semi colins, m dashes, colins, commas, etc...

Your transitions are also aren't great. Both sentence to sentence at times and especially paragraph to paragraph. First to second paragraph, that first sentence of the second paragraph is a horrible way to start it with what was said previous. Just another tip...

Anyway, it's late and that's all I can think of for now.

Basically main points to work on

-QUOTATATIONS (especially), you can't just throw them in, and need to really think about if you NEED them or not.
-organization, mainly into the woods. You have this idea, but don't develop it at all. If you aren't going to fully develop into the woods, I'd suggest leaving it out or if you don't want it as prominent... try to change the way you organize into the essay to make it less awkward
-transitions, sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph, make smoother

Those are main things, if you want more help, PM me and I'll look through it more and give you specific examples. I'm goin to bed now tho but next time I come on I'll help.

Anyway, sorry for the long reply... and sorry if I was harsh.

GL with the paper.

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 11:32am

I like uber-harsh reviews, so thanks for taking the tiem to write it. I'll definitely take that into consideration when I revise it.

[BluCat500]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 11:49am

Since everyone loves an acronym, this one is for quotes

Introduce
Cite
Explain

Also in my experience with high school essays, teachers eat it up when you squeeze a lot of literary terms in(as long as they're relevant.)

So perhaps cut out some of the extra plot summary and talk about characterization(the fatal flaws that led them to their downfalls/grief), how the actions reveal the characters, symbolism, the tone of the pieces...etc...

And perhaps just work on polishing your language a bit...Instead of...

"Children can only grow, from something you love, to something you lose," is a quote from the Broadway musical, Into the Woods. It was said after Rapunzel, the Witch's adopted daughter, died from heartache after her husband abandoned her.

Make it flow a bit smoother, although I think this sentence is a tad long...

"Children can only grow, from something you love, to something you lose," is the poignant utterance of grief exressed by a heatbroken witch and mother after the violently sudden loss of her daughter in Sondheim's musical masterpiece "Into the Woods"

Updated On: 10/30/05 at 11:49 AM

[JayKid]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:06pm

nice acronym!

So as I said, with quotations, do that. Introdoce, Cite, Explain.

You can't just throw them in.

And I agree also about the language, however, that is something I didn't say anything about because being in 9th grade, vocabulary is one of the things that you can forgive, because you have yet to expand it. However, you can always use a thesaurus, which I think is very helpful. You'll learn new words and be able to vary your words and with improved language comes better writing. Yet, I think BlueCat meant more than just the actually words used, because (as I said in my above reply) your transitions from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph definetly need work... to help make it become a more fluid essay.

So GL again... and as I said, any help, feel free to PM me

[BluCat500]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:09pm

Yup I wasn't referring to vocabulary really, just phrases like...this is a quote, this is what happened, this is from this(these are random examples, not necessarily from your essay.)

[JayKid]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 12:55pm

Yea, however, that kind of stuff CAN be used sometimes, as long as it's not overdone. Using it once or twice is ok, but too much makes your essay very wooden and boring. You have to vary everything, make it interesting, and most importantly (shoulda mentioned this), RHETORICAL!

Which is a word you might not know the meaning of (I know I didn't when I first learned it, trying to figure it out from what i knew of a "rhetorical question"), but making your writing rhetorical is so important.

It means persuasive. So when you write, not only do you need to write to someone who doesn't know what you are talking about (always a good idea is to show your writing to a third reader who doesn't have backround info on your essay and what its about), but you need to make it persuasive. You need the person to believe what you are saying, and get them to agree.

So that is another thing to keep in mind.

[TheHumanTorch]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 4:28pm

My Fair Lady.... be careful about writing in the first person, i have seen people fail essays just because they used the first person, so i would just make sure thats okay with your teacher before handing it in

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 4:31pm

TYhank you so much, everyone! I really mean it. I want this essay to be really good, which is why I bothered to psot it here in the first place. And also, I'm better at creative writign than essay writing if anyone wants to read the novel I'm working on.