The Exemplication Essay

Upon entering Mr. Davis’ class, I still considered myself as an amateur writer. Learning from Ms. Bailey last year, which was a lot of english information, I felt as though it wasn’t enough. The past nine months have been rigorous, challenging, and stressful times filled with due dates of essays and work. But these nine months have been worth it because I’ve learned so much of writing and reading strategies that I’ve incorporated them to things such as the ACT and the writing proficiency. I still need to reflect on past works but I’ve experienced so much that I now consider myself as an experienced English writer. In each quarter, there were large scaled essays which I felt that I learned my mistakes from. The third quarter essay, where I wrote a realistic narrative about a student who suffered from bullying, was one of the biggest writing assignments I’ve experienced because I incorporated many elements into the story that makes it a realistic narrative. The past fictional stories and essays I’ve created, I sometimes fail to engage the audience since I bombard them with facts. In the realistic narrative, I tried to connect with the audience with a topic that would relate to them, which is bullying. In the story, my main character is struggling at school all because of bullying, which at the end commits suicide because he couldn’t take the pain. I felt that this ending would make a more realistic view on the horrors of this epidemic because many young people contemplate suicide. Although this ending is far too violent and abrupt, I felt it was acceptable for this type of narrative. Also, it would engage the audience into this violent ending and would question the narrative at the end. There were some mistakes in this essay but overall I felt this essay was one that I enjoyed very much and learned a lot from. Learning from past works can help with developing new writing projects to make it more efficient and better. In the beginning of the quarter, I didn’t use outlines to start on my essay which was bad because my drafts would be disorganized or missing a few items. Now I’ve learned from that mistake and I have no trouble organizing my essays into the facts that I need. The writing type that I enjoyed and learned from a lot would be the persuasion essay. The principles of persuasion such as claim, appeals, and other factors helped me make more persuasive letters and stories. Because of this, I incorporated persuasive elements into things such as scholarship letters and other things. Growing as a writer is good by learning from your past essays. The teachers that make comments on your pieces are blessings because they show you the mistakes that you make, whether it is grammatical errors or it doesn’t make any sense. Some steps to take to continue the growth would be to document your best works and worst works. Looking back would tell you why it made it so good and why the essay was terrible. It helped me tremendously and I can see the growth of the English student that I am today compared to the beginning of the year.

Characteristics of the Realistic Narrative

Realistic Narrative Final

Realistic Fiction tend to take place in the present

Having a plot that is centered around a time period of right now is usually a big characteristic in a realistic narrative. In the works of Bierce and Twain, they incorporated their own time period to develop their realistic narrative. This gives them a sort of tone and theme of the story which supports the characters and their interaction with the storyline. In my realistic narrative, it centers around the present time period with a student that suffers from a problem that is affecting many students right now. This shows the effect of a specific problem in the present time period and how the characters in my story are struggling through it and suffering.

Characters are involved at things that can happen

Characters should have problems that correlate to the present and have them suffer through it with the problems. In the work of Twain and his story, the character involved had problems that was related to back then in his time period. In my realistic narrative, the main character suffers through bullying. Bullying is an epidemic that relates to many individuals during this time period. Characters can also have decisions that real people could make in the present time period. As in my story, the main character committed suicide in effect of the constant suffering. Many people also end their lives because of this which is also another problem in this present time.

Characters can live in real places

Twain’s story comes from his hometown in Missouri which the theme sets into play. In my realistic narrative, my character lives in a bad neighborhood infested with crime. This is also a factor on the bullying problem that affects him.

• Overall, this story symbolizes the struggling teen in america about how students can result in bad ways once they are succumbed to bullying. This realistic narrative comes from an inspiration of when i was struggling with the same problem as the main character when i was younger.

Rhyme, Meter, and Figurative Language / Ballad of Birmingham

Ballad of Birmingham Poem

Rhyme

• In the poem written by Dudley Randall, the rhyme had a pattern in the scheme which makes the second and last line words rhyme together. Also, the poem follows two characters, a mother and a child, when they speak which is dialogue.

Meter

• Meter can be seen as a repeating pattern in the poem. When the mother disapproves her daughter’s actions of going to the march, she repeats “no, baby, no” in the stanzas of the poem. This can be an example of meter because it has a repeating rhyme scheme associated with the poem and is very vital to the storyline of the poem as well.

Sound Device

• Alliteration – This can be found in the poem where the mother repeats saying “no, baby, no” as a way to tell her child not to go to the march. Alliteration is a repeat of words and the words no can be best fit into this device.
• Resonance – Resonance is a sound device where an action of sound is described in the story. In the last stanza of the poem where the bomb explodes can be a great example of resonance because the author is describing the sound which creates a more tense environment for the mother to her child.

Figurative Language

• Metaphor – This language device is shown at some points of the poem. One of the examples that metaphor uses is the description the author tells the audience about the police. The author describes them as wild dogs which is a metaphor for the police in Birmingham at the time of segregation. Another example of metaphor was when the daughter was described as getting ready to go somewhere. This is an example because she may be going to church but she also dresses up for her own funeral. At the end, the daughter dies.
• Personification – Personification can be seen where the author compares dogs to human abilities. Although it is a metaphor to the police, the author describes the dogs wild and fierce which can be seen as human traits of a birmingham policeman.

SOAPS and DIDLS / A New Kind of War

https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/hemingway-madrid.html

SOAPS

Speaker – The author of this short story is Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway was an american author in the 20th century creating fictional stories as well as being a journalist. In this story, Ernest used his status as the main character for the story and his contribution to the foreign country.

Occasion – The occasion for this story was during the spanish civil war. Since America did not want to be involved in foreign affairs, volunteers from other countries came together to help those in need in Madrid. In Hemingways eyes, he can see the distant shells from the horizon which signifies continued fighting from the rebels and the government. Hemingway also uses characters that have no military background to be in the middle of the war to compare to the real event in the spanish civil war where volunteers were in the middle of the firefight.

Audience – The audience that would listen to this story would be the american people that wanted to know what was going on in the spanish civil war. America is cut off from information that involves foreign affairs and hemingway wrote this story to make it seem as though the violence in the streets is not taken that seriously. Hemingway also shows that volunteers with no fighting experience had overreacting responses when talking about their wounds. This shows the audience that tthe people did not want to seem useless.

Purpose – The purpose of this story is to entertain the audience with this kind of bizarre story but also give an analogy of what it is like being in a country on the middle of a civil war. The streets being hit by shells while people go by day to day makes us realize that the war is getting more tense as civilians are getting more closer to death. Also, it shows us the horrible ways of war as volunteers get hurt just because of trying to help someone.

Subject – The subject would be the spanish civil war being placed in Spain at the time before World war 2. The story lists the main characters location being taken placed in spain and how gunfire is in the distance.

DIDLS

Diction – The word choice Ernest Hemingway uses in this short story is very calm as well as having tensity. In the beginning part of the story, it shows the main character being calm when there is heavy gunfire firing in the distance. This shows how the character reacts to violence, even when death is near him.

Images – I can imagine detailed images when reading the short story. Hemingway uses a lot of descriptive words to describe the scenario happening in a scene or what the wounded looked like. There is a lot of description being taken in towards the middle of the story and the end of the story.

Details – The real facts given out here in the story come from dialogue exchange between the main character and his other comrades. They talk mainly about the war and how the government is winning over the rebels. This fact can be proven because of the effects after the civil war.

Language – Hemingway does a lot of descriptive words to help fit in the information of the story. He has a lot of positive connotation rather than negative ones because it will change the theme. The tone of the story sounds serene and sort of tense because of the gunfire but also the calm citizens of Spain.

Sentence structure – The sentence structure changes in the story when dialogue exchange occurs. Hemingway uses dialogue structure to see the pasts of characters in the story. The sentence structure is different in each paragraph with one paragraph at one place and a couple of sentences at another.

Fourth Quarter Essay – Realistic Narrative Essay

RealisticNarrativeFinalDraft-BrandonVillanueva

Grade – 80%

• In this final essay, i created an outline to organize my information and plan out the realistic narrative step by step in order for the rough draft to work. I still did not use a graphic organizer because up to this point an outline still has more value and efficiency. The outline was a big help because the realistic narrative covered a lot of detail that made it easy for me to organize.
• My topic for this narrative was about bullying which ended in a very traumatic way in which the protagonist commits suicide. The ending was a bit more rough and abrupt which did catch the audience’s attention but left them in bitterness because of the actions the main character did. If instead the character chooses to live in the end, the ending would be a bit more at ease which would calm the audience’s tension. I made the essay connect with the audience by having dialogue information and other factors.
• There was no thesis in this essay but gradually my point was getting across gradually throughout the story. As the story progresses, the audience can feel what the main character’s struggles are and should know that this essay was something about bullying and it’s effectiveness towards the younger generation.
• Description and exemplification was very present in this essay since it is a realistic narrative. I put in a lot of graphic detail to make it seem as though the story can be so surreal. Description is a good key for this type of essay because having good description will lead to a more attention from the audience. Dialogue exchange between characters can also be a good way to keep the audience’s attention.
• In this conclusion, i ended it a bit more sinister than it would have on another bullying story. In my opinion, i felt that the suicide ending would prove it a bit more realistic than a cliche ending of a changed teen who would do good in their life and be productive because of traumatic experiences. In this type of writing style, having a conclusion in a realistic way would benefit the essay because the audience can have connections to the main character.

Second Quarter essay – Outside analysis essay

Outsidereadinganalysisessayfinal-BrandonVillanuevaP8

Second Quarter Essay

Grade: 88%

• When i developed this essay, i only used an outline to list my points in correct order to ensure my analysis points is on point with the outline i created. I did not create a graphic organizer since i felt that it was too much work on creating an analysis essay for a fictional story. The outline helped a lot since i get most of my information from it and i can correctly do step by step process when creating my rough draft. I am used to creating an outline prior to an essay rather than start with a graphic organizer. I learned that when i do graphic organizers i tend to make it more different than the outline information.
• I made good connection with my audience since i compared this outside analysis essay with real life morals since the fictional book i’ve covered had moral lessons incorporated into their story. This creates an audience that can connect with what the characters can feel. There were some factors that i needed to work on to get my audience’s attention such as incorporating in text citations.
• This essay’s thesis statement was a lot more like my previous thesis statement and other past works i have done that involves thesis statements. In this essay, my thesis statement was short but to the point which relates to the persuasive points that i am trying to cover.
• When developing my body paragraphs, i used past lessons from previous works as well as new techniques to deliver this analysis essay. I incorporated more evidence based on the book as well as some in text citations to prove some of the points i was trying to make.
• Since this is one of my earliest works that involve analysis on the text, i felt as though i learned a lot from the mistakes that i made in this essay to better myself for analysis essays in the future. The conclusion that i had in this essay, in my opinion, ended more abruptly and felt that the audience needed to know more on the subject.

First Quarter Essay – The Road

P8_TheRoad_Villanueva

First quarter essay

Grade: 88%

• Before i created this essay, i developed a weak graphic organizer that only listed the points of the novel in chronological order to help me remember what the key points were during the novel. I did not include any detailed sub points to emphasize my persuading points. The graphic organizer was sort of resourceful because of the facts that i had which i then put them all together during the rough draft portion. The outline was good because i put more details into the subplots for the points that i was going to make. The outline was very resourceful when developing the rough draft since it was all in chronological order and had a lot of information present.
• In this essay, i did not put in work on engaging the audience since i was more focused on giving out my information. The theme was not clear since getting the audience’s attention was not properly take
• In this essay, my thesis statement was clear on it’s purpose which related to the whole argument. The statement was short but it went straight to the point and followed the main details of the paper.
• I’ve made many uses of persuasion, exemplification, and other factors that would influence the audience to my side. I included many descriptive details from the book to give an example of my persuasion point and as well as evidence. I used heavily on description since this novel was a fictitious story and made more sense when i used description for evidence.
• I’ve grown from this essay because of how i carefully written my parts such as outlines and rough drafts. Right now, i learned many creative writing styles which i can learn from my mistakes in my previous works to see if i can use the knowledge i have now to fix what i made wrong before.