Amani, hi.
I’ve put quite a few comments in the draft I’ve uploaded above /\/\/\, so please download it and take a look. I agree with Jayvon’s praise of and suggestions for this essay: there are moments of descriptive storytelling in here that really shine, and there are also moments where I would encourage you to reconsider whether you need to tell us certain things that Jayvon suggests may be redundant or repetitive. Ok, here are my big picture thoughts:
–We need more specifics (names, timeframe, places) regarding the school you went to and your teacher. At the very least we need to give her a name (fine to make one up if you’d prefer).
–We absolutely need to hear way more detail about the moment you finally stood up and spoke up to the teacher in class. For me, this is the climax of the essay and as such, you want to slow way down and unpack the details and suspense.
–I’ve highlight some sentences that I’ve identified as “comma splices.” Please Google this and try to learn from the web about what these are and how to fix them. If you want my help, just ask and I’ll try to assist via e-mail, etc.
Thanks–looking forward to your revisions.
M
Hey Amani,
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Hope all is well. I really enjoyed your essay in how you transitioned from enjoying English as a class to it being ruined by the encounter you faced with your English teacher. I feel that us, as individuals, have all gone through a situation where something we once loved became tarnished as a result of a bad encounter with a different person. It’s up to us to either let that person/bad situation put us down where we let it defeat us or we can learn from the bad experience that we faced and use it to better ourselves in bouncing back from that circumstance. I liked how you told your encounter with her in the form of a storyline; I felt as if we, as the readers, were easily able to keep track of the different situations that led up to that worst encounter you had with your English teacher when she showed favoritism with giving out the candy.
One suggestion I would make with you revising your essay is to not repeat the way you introduce your sentence as much because it sounds at times too repetitive if that makes sense. For instance, in the first sentence of your first paragraph, you talk about the experiences that stuck with you and had a tremendous impact on your life. Then, the next sentence, you begin with the same type of phrase again so I think that you don’t have to necessarily repeat it again in order for it to have a better effect when reaching the audience. I would also say to watch out for any grammatial errors and run-on sentences.
But besides that, I really enjoyed your essay. I was able to relate with your experience, and I hope that you will use this bad experience to remind you of what you can overcome if you face any future ones.
*grammatical lol
Hi Armani,
I hope all is well. I really enjoyed your first draft. From the beginning to the end I was hooked. You have a strong topic. Racism, a topic most of us – myself including has experienced first hand or even second hand. Thank you for sharing about your experience with your horrible teacher. I’m glad the lesson that you took away from this was you don’t need anyone to help you flourish and succeed you can do that all by yourself. I would like to maybe dig a little deeper in how you felt experiencing this. It’s crazy to think about it now that she basically segregated the classroom and divided the black children to the back and the white children to the front.
I enjoyed reading about your mom confronting her and trying to figure out why you were being targeted by this teacher. Did you guys ever speak about this in your later years. Did you ever tell her you experienced racism and did she ever prepare you or talk to you about it? Lol – sorry i’m curious and invested in the story.
Overall I’m really looking forward in reading your final copy.
Hello Amani,
Great draft! I’m sorry you had to go through that. That must have been really rough for you at such a young age. Your story is very moving. As you described your situation, I felt the same anxiety and frustration that you did. The flow of the piece was good, and the events you recounted were organized. At the end of the story, however, I feel like you left me hanging. I wanted to find out what happened to the teacher. Did she get away with her behavior? Did any of the other black kids complain? Was the school ever notified for her? Were you even able to succeed in her class, given her bias? What happened next? Don’t cut the story off there. Also, look out for grammatical mistakes. Missing punctuation may lead to run-on sentences:
“I would always win awards in class for writing the best poems in my grade I remember that everyone had loved my poem that I called ‘Silly Billy’.”
“In just moments that all changed when I met my new English teacher I knew it was going to be a nightmare and I was right having her as an English teacher was in fact a nightmare that I couldn’t get out of.”
“A few of my fellow classmates that sat in the back with me because they were black as well seemed offended by her actions because they work just as hard if not more than the students in the front and they got absolutely nothing for their efforts. In that very moment I was hurt and started to doubt myself.”
Be safe!
Hey David,
Thank you for the good feedback I really appreciated it. I will take into consideration when writing my final draft to discuss the things you talked about. I think that can help to make my essay stronger so thanks for the tips. Stay safe !
great topic and story. Being that I’ve never dealt with racism that directly it was new perspective. Reading this make me wonder what ever happened to that teacher. I mean if her racism was that overt was she fired? Knowing that she was a racist did you tell ur mom that she was a racist. At that young age how were able make the distinction between a teacher instruction aka her asking you to sit in the back with the other black with racism. some student at that age wouldn’t second guess a situation like this Did you automatically know she was racism at that age and knew what racism was or was it more of reflecting process after taken the class.
Im asking all these questions because I feel like they would elevate your writting thanks for sharing
Hey Amani
Thank you for sharing your educational experiences with us. I hope everything is going well for you. I really enjoyed reading your essay on how you love English class in general, but then it ruined by an English teacher. We have all experienced similar situations, maybe not in English class but in another class or in life, but it is up to us to decide whether we should let that situation or person to let down or maybe we can learn from that situation on how to learn a new lesson out of it that can be used to face if you ever experience a similar situation in the future. One suggestion that I would give in revising your essay draft is to stick to one story and write a bit more about it because your sentences sound a lot repetitive. I really enjoyed your essay and hopefully, you will never have to experience such a nasty situation like racism, but if you do for some reason hopefully you will be able to overcome from using the lesson learned from this situation.
Hey Amani,
Thanks for sharing your experience, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. I feel like you should compare it with a more recent, similar stories so it really emphasizes the main point of your essay. Also, including more of your other classmate’s point of view could be interesting, then the idea of privilege could be incorporated as well. Including a line or so from “Silly Billy” can be a fun moment as well.