Essay Fundamentals

 

The hurricane wreaked destruction along the beach. House lay destroyed, and there was no sign of another person anywhere. I stood safely on a hill overlooking the mess, staring dumbly at my broken town. 

 

The room felt stuffy. No breeze, only the shuffle of papers and an occasional dry cough. The teacher paced, arms behind her back, enforcing the overall feeling of trapped boredom. 

 

Tires screeched. Bright colors flew across my windshield, followed by the sound of a wheeze. I opened my door, shaking. The clown’s over-sized shoes stuck out from underneath my car.

1. Rittenberg captures the attention of the reader by stating his age. It establishes who he is and what his perspective may be. It also causes the reader to identify with him, because almost anyone old enough to like reading NPR can relate to being a teenager.

2. RIttenberg mentions bygone wars and illness, which he later likens to contemporary issues like the turmoil in the Middle East and disease in Africa.

 

3.  The author refers to the changes modern times have brought; trips to the moon, vaccines, etc. He thinks that technology will continue to benefit us, unlike the author of “Imperfect Traces.”

 

4. The title is full of the optimism Rittenberg holds. It also ties back into the theme of his essay, that dark days have fallen upon us before, to be persevered over. His father holds the belief that today is a dark day, and Rittenberg emphasizes that they will be overcome as they have been before.

I really liked this essay. It was more than an essay; it was social commentary and also poetic. I think that the author is totally correct in her preference for all things “old school.” The digital world is really unresponsive; sure, we can communicate more frequently with people that are hard to reach, but e-mail is pretty impersonal in comparison to a real conversation. Some people spend more time with their electronics than they do with others, which I think is an alarming trend. Who really cares how much more “HD” Comcast has than Direct TV? People who can’t imagine being places off the couch for themselves.

I have had the same English teacher the last three semesters, Ms. Hastig. Her class focused mainly on novels and what their underlying themes were. The writing assignments we had were only occasional, but they were absolutley awful. We had to write timed essays in class, with the prompts focusing on some obscure part of the books we read, almost like a unit test in another class. I hated them, because I always felt really anxious during the writes, and sometimes couldn’t think of anything for the prompt off the top of my head. I am seriously relieved I don’t have to try and turn out perfect outlined essays without time to really work and develop the piece. I also am looking forward to writing about what I think, and not being limited to discussing another writer’s opinion.