The
Thoreau versus Crane essay, given by Dr.Simel, was designed to make us think
about the similarities and differences in the stories of Henry David Thoreau in
his work, Walden and Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. The first
time we did this essay I struggled when trying to put my points into the right
words and integrating quotes to punctuate the point I was trying to make. That
time I got a C on it and I was disappointed in it, I felt as if I could do
better. When we got a second chance to re-do the essay I really focused on it
and with Dr.Simel’s corrections I was able to see why I got points off. It was
generally because of bad grammar and not fully developing my ideas.
One of the strengths in my essay was
that I had a lot to write about. I had a lot of ideas that I was able to
integrate on the differences between the two stories. Developing the ideas
completely became an issue and being consistent in the length and style of the
writing. For some of the arguments I would have a page worth of information,
quotes, and research to back it up, and on other arguments there would be a few
sentences. I need to work on developing the shorter arguments so that I make a
better case for it. The second time I did the essay I got 100% on the
organization of the essay and the development of the ideas but an 80% on the
grammatical portion. I often struggle with this portion of writing and that
means that in the future I am going to need to put more focus on it. I need to
re-read papers two or three times before deciding that they are ready to turn
in.
After I got my first draft of the
essay back the first thing that I did was to go over the corrections that had
been made and I took note of the grammar mistakes and what type they were,
punctuation was a big problem for me and adding extra and unnecessary words.
Then instead of going into the original document and making the corrections I
re-typed the whole thing as if it were a brand new essay. I re-typed it because
when I just go in and fix the mistakes I’ve made I am prone to making more
typing errors such as extra letters or extra spaces. While re-typing the essay
it also gave me a chance to change more of the wording and some of the details
as well as adding some more details to the arguments.
I spent a lot of time with both,
Thoreau and Crane’s ideas about life and I have to say that I do not agree with
either of them. Thoreau believes that the only way to live is to live simply,
void of frivolous possessions and believes in living in solidarity. Crane’s
belief was that you were stuck with whatever life you were born into. Both of
their idea’s limited what humans could do with their lives. I believe that people do not have to conform
to the idea’s that their society put in their head and I also don’t think that
they need to live shut off from the rest of the world. With the right mix of
self-reflection and input from the society I think the human mind can do any
possible thing with life.
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