Hello, I have written an essay for my school in South Australia.
I got my score back, and they were:
Content:9
Organisation: 8.5
Language and Style Mechanics: 8
I don't seem to be able to get higher than 8 for Language every time a write essays.
But I don't know why...
Can somebody please mark my essay yourself and criticize the problems in it?
Please give me detailed feedback - my teacher just says "Well Done!"
Some points that may help:
I am from Korea, and is still learning English.
I am in year 9, according to Australian Curriculum.
I have attached the assessment criteria for those who are kind enough to check against them.
Thank you very much!!!
My Essay:The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a humours yet insightful book written by Sherman Alexie. The book is about a tale of a hydrocephalic Indian named Arnold Spirit (usually called Junior), living in an impoverished Indian reservation. Due to his medical conditions, he is always the underdog, lowest member of his society. Despite this he keeps his hope, expanding it beyond his hometown and into the wider community. Alexie incorporates many themes, such as poverty, friendship and hope, within Junior's journey, and those ideas are most effectively conveyed with the literary technique of characterisation.
The theme of hope is prevalent throughout the novel, and Alexie conveys this message through the dialog of the characters. Back at Wellpinit, Junior does not realise the situation of the Indians. Mr P, his geometry teacher, tells him that "All [the] kids have given up ... All [Junior's] friends, all the bullies ... We're all defeated." and that "[Junior] won't give up." Junior realises that he is the last person of his tribe who still can live with hope. So he leaves the reservation and enters Reardan High school. There, surrounded by those who have ambitions, he finds his own hope. Later on in the book, one can clearly see that Junior starts to understand this notion of hope and confidence, saying "we were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way [I was] going to sit still. Nope, [I]wanted to fly." Through all the poverty and violence, Junior had kept his hope alive, and it flourished when he carried forward. This beautiful idea is most powerfully conveyed by Alexie through the characterisation of Junior.
In the novel, Alexie thoroughly explores the idea of poverty and its relationship to self-esteem through the characterisation of the Indians on the reservation. The reservation is extremely disadvantaged, "so poor and sad that [the children] have to study from the same dang books [that their] parents studied from." All Indians, regardless of their gender and age, would have had their hopes and dreams, who "[would have] dreamed about being something other than poor, but ... never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams." Anyone whose dreams were shattered would have low self-esteem, which is the case for most Indians in the reservation. When Junior leaves the reservation in order to attend to Reardan High (a rich white school outside the reservation) he finds a completely different set of characters, those with privileged backgrounds and high hopes and expectations. Junior finds that he must live up to these expectations, and he too starts to expect more from himself. The change is significant, improving his school grades and athleticism, especially in basketball: He was an average player back at the reservation, because nobody expected anything from him. Now, "[The basketball] Coach and the other players wanted [him] to be good ... They expected [him] to be good. So [he] became good." Clearly, Alexie is suggesting that people's backgrounds and situations can alter their values and desires, thus changing their life. This idea is effectively conveyed through the characterisation of the Indians in the reservation.
Alexie conveys the message of friendship in the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian through the characterisation of Rowdy. "Rowdy is the toughest kid on the [reservation]. He is long and lean and strong like a snake." In the poor, violence-riddled community of the reservation, he is the chief bully. However, he shares a strange friendship with Junior. Rowdy is the protector, and "has protected [Junior] since [they] were born." In return, Junior draws cartoons for Rowdy. Although Rowdy is always the tormentor, he loves cartoons and comics. "He likes to pretend that he live inside the comic books," mainly as a way of escaping his drunken, brutal father and his poor family. This unusual, yet finely balanced friendship between Rowdy and Junior is disrupted when Junior leaves the reservation. Rowdy is angry that Junior is abandoning him to suffer alone, and eventually becomes Junior's nemesis. The illustration on page 53 clearly shows the pain, sorrow and anger that Rowdy feels when Junior departs. It depicts Rowdy's face, angry almost to the point of crying, making comments such as "You white lover!" Throughout the novel, he is angry at Junior, but he occasionally has brief, almost friendly conversation with him. This shows that, no matter how much Rowdy wants to hate Junior, he cannot do so - Junior is the only person he can let his guard down. Eventually, Rowdy returns as Junior's best friend, accepting Junior's 'nomadic' way of life and giving himself a person who he can befriend. This notion of friendship caused by hardship is expressed brilliantly by Alexie through the characterisation of Rowdy.
Hardship is everywhere, and is especially the case for the characters in the novel. It destroys people's self-esteem, performance and even well-being. But it can also create friendship and amplifies hope. Sherman Alexie successfully conveys these messages through the characterisation of the people inside the story. A quote from Vince Lombardi Jr. summarises those messages: "The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor [sic]."
