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| theodysseyonline.com Compliment specific attributes (paragraph transitions, sentence starters other than the subject, adverbs better than "very," sentence length variety, power verbs instead of linking verbs, avoiding weak expletives like "This is..." and "There are/is..." and "It is...", any sentence style from The Art of Styling Sentences...) of each Causal essay written by only your table mates. Accumulate 300+ total words. |
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Causal essay blog task--due November 3
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88 comments:
3 Kueter M
Roegiers had a very good topic. It was very modern and would keep us teenage readers interested. He had many fantastic sentence starters: prepositional phrases and dependent clauses. His examples are great and help the readers understand what he is trying to explain. He has very good descriptive words and I could picture what he was talking about easily. He also brought up his survey not only in his essay but also through a picture as well, which was very helpful. Roby also had a very easy to read topic. She started many sentences differently: dependent clauses, appositives, prepositional phrases, and even questions. She was also very good at transitioning from one thought to another in her paragraph. Thus, it was very easy to follow. Moelter right away started her essay with an interrupting modifier between the subject and verb! Her first sentence is absolutely amazing and makes me drift off into a dream: “Every person, no matter where they come from, wants to come home from whatever onerous day they may have had to escape to the dreamy wonderland of sleep where they have complete control over what happens to them.” She has great sentence starters: prepositional phrases and dependent clauses. She also puts occasional questions in her essay to get the reader thinking. She also did a very good job with introducing her paraphrases and direct quotes. Hoffman’s introduction paragraph is absolutely amazing. It is so relatable and easy to follow and quite hilarious at times. He uses many transition words, dependent clauses, and prepositional phrases when starting his sentences in his essay. He used very powerful words that helped me picture what he was trying to delineate. He also asked occasional questions to entice the reader to read more to find the answer. In all, I can tell that my table mates are writing topics that they are passionate about and are having a lot of fun doing just that.
3 Barton
My two table mates are Mr. Woessner and Ms. Coyle. I began by first reading Mr. Woessner’s essay. Woessner had a lot of big words that made his essay sound smart, yet he didn’t overuse them and he didn’t use big words that I didn’t understand, which helped me as the reader a great deal. Some examples of these large yet comprehensible words he used to enhance his essay are: demographic, connotation, determinants, repulsive, and antagonize. Mr. Woessner transitioned from paragraph to paragraph by comparing one generation to another, which I thought was very clever as well. I also did a search for the words “very” and “there”, and was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that Mr. Woessner had only used the word “there” once, and had not used “very” at all. After reading Mr. Woessner’s essay, I read Ms. Coyle’s. I was immediately captivated by the title. I also thought that one of her opening questions was very humorous yet intriguing. The question was, “Are we no better than cats, chimpanzees, or chickens?” Ms. Coyle kept me captivated throughout the introduction, and she lead me on with the command, “do not put down this essay, reader, for all of these questions will be answered for you.” A well done introduction paragraph easily flowed into the rest of the essay. I also thought that Ms. Coyle did a phenomenal job at incorporating her survey data into her essay, making the transition from statistic to the rest of the sentence fuse together perfectly. Coyle also seemed to have dug deep in her research. She argues many points of her essay both ways in order to ensure that she determines the correct answer. I thought she took the correct approach, as she looked into the mind of both the bully and the bullied in her research and conclusion. Well done to both of you.
Reindl 1
During the process of writing my causal essay, I looked towards others’ work to gain inspiration and to praise them on their work. My classmates who sit near me at the same table have shown excellence in their essays. Brandsrud displays excellence when it comes to having sentences that work together. The work that he does is superbly impressive. When I say this, I mean that each sentence seems to belong right where he has placed it. Nothing seems out of place and they all are relevant to the topic at hand. Hauge immediately captures a reader’s attention through the power of her title. The way she words it and uses different literary devices is admirable. After going through the title, she thrives by using a simulated example to prove her point. She is able to capture the attention of everybody, but also is able to have the reader understand by using relatable examples. Mikkelsen presents fantastic examples of using sentence starters that deviate from the normal subject then verb combination. She has the capability of making the readers stay captivated throughout the whole process of going through the essay. Varying her sentence structure gives her the opportunity to include unique vocabulary and grammatical terms, all while having her sentences still making sense. She clearly shows her ability to entice readers and keep their attention on the essay. My final table mate is Quanbeck. Quanbeck is outstanding in his ability to take unwanted essay terms, and using them for his advantage. A great example is wording his sentences so well as to use expletives for the benefit of his essay. Another thing I admire about Quanbeck’s essays is his essay topics overall. He strays from normal and picks topics that he is interested rather than what would be the easiest topic to write about. All of my table mates have the incredible power of writing in each of their own ways. They thrive greatly when it comes to writing and use it for their benefit.
Thompson 6
Zajicek did an excellent job about grabbing your attention right away in her essay. Her introduction made me create a mental picture in my mind of many practices that I have had in my life. She also did a good job explaining the evolution of sports (basketball) to help me understand how they changed to what we know today. Zajicek also does a good job with not using the same word over and over, but varying it up throughout the essay. I really enjoyed Long’s essay. It was interesting and her sources helped with the science and thoughts behind why we laugh. In her introduction she was able to get me interested in her essay by giving me examples of where we laugh and that we laugh everyday and later explaining in detail what causes us to laugh. I am very interested to ready her essay once she is done with it. Hokenstad did a good job with presenting questions in her intro that have you examine what we know as life and friendships. Why do they feel the need to be a part of a group? Was one question that made me intrigued to what the rest of the essay will be. I was shocked to see that 79.1% of students said they would be more likely to accept someone who attends many social events and outings. This is surprising to me because I do not attend a multitude of social events, I do attend some, but I still feel included and accepted among my peers. Hokenstad’s essay is very interesting because I definitely did not know that many people enjoyed being in a social setting, even though I am happier in a social setting it is still surprising that many other people feel the same way as I do. Loosbrock gave a wonderful description in his introduction about his topic that set a premise for the rest of his essay. His research gave good details, facts, and descriptions to support his opinions and make his essay really good and highly intellectual.
Wrightsman 1
The casual essays being written by my table mates: Headrick, Sjogren, and Benitez, are beginning to become flawless and well written. Sjogren uses a variety of paragraph transitions. Her transitions allow her essay to flow without a break in the reader’s thought process when moving to each of the subtopics explaining her main topic. Sjogren also uses good verb and word choice through the essay. She is going outside of the box and using strong words that give her essay uniqueness and make it more enjoyable to read. Her sentence starters vary throughout the entire essay. This gives it variety and makes it less boring when it comes to starting each sentence. She does a great job avoiding expletives too. Headrick uses strong facts and statements in his essay. The facts make it more valid and allow the reader to have ease when they read it knowing that they are getting the correct information. Going along with that, Headrick does not bore the reader with just facts, he adds in some humor to make it more enjoyable while still being valid. With that being said, the humor he adds does not take away from what he is trying to explain but simply makes it easier for the reader to read it. Benitez uses a variety of adverbs in his essay but could still spruce up the verys that take over some sentences. Although, he does use great paragraph transitions to smoothly transition from topic to topic. I also saw the Benitez was using strong verbs like “obscure” and “presumed” to liven up the verb choice in his essay and avoid using boring verbs. Overall, I feel that my table mates are succeeding in writing this essay because of the strong words, various sentence starters and transitions that they are all using in their essays.
1 Presler
As the year continues to move at a fast rate, it is already apparent our composing skills are improving at a similar rate. I love the way Ellis uses humor in order to introduce her television topic and to keep the reader interested. This is a great way to attract people who would not necessarily choose to read in their free time. When I am being entertained while also getting informed or introduced to a new idea or opinion, I remember what I read. Meyer does really well when it comes to word choice and word usage. His use of explanatory adjectives and strong verbs help boost his topic in order to make a long essay worth reading. In his introductory paragraph, he also makes use of asking questions to bring into focus what his essay is going to be about. This strategy makes a reader think about the question, develop their own opinion before reading more, and then allows him to explain his views on the point being made. Specifically asking a question within your essay directly addresses whoever is reading your essay and makes it more relatable while reading. Reese also uses the questioning strategy to introduce his topic, and his paragraph transitions are what stand out to me. Instead of using the traditional next, in addition, or also, he uses phrases, allowing his writing to flow much easier. As I began reading Klamm’s causal essay, I clearly understood I knew next to nothing about animal cannibalism, which is fine by me. However, I did learn some new information, and she does well explaining a topic most people will not know much about. She includes prepositional phrases at the beginning of sentences and appositives in order to help her sentences further advance to reach a higher level of composition.
1 Meyer
It is always interesting and helpful to read the works of other classmates to learn from them and use their techniques in my own essays. After reading Presler’s causal essay, I noticed many specific attributes that deserve recognition. There are little to no sentences that begin with weak expletives such as “This is” or “There are,” thus creating better fluency throughout the essay. Also, the way she organized and composed her introductory paragraph easily relates to the understanding of most people. This makes her topic easy and clear to understand what it is about. Reading an essay that does not describe the purpose is hard to follow and understand but Presler does a fantastic job of avoiding that. Ellis and her essay consisted of very strong transitions that instantly brings the reader’s attention to the new description. The first couple of sentences in her essay easily grabbed my attention as it included a quote from the popular television show named Friends, which is one of my all time favorite shows. Reese’s essay, like my own, consisted of a question or two in the introduction, which is something I like because it gives me something to think about as I read the rest of the essay. Asking questions to a reader can help one possibly rethink their beliefs based on the remainder of the essay. Reese did a great job at creating a curiosity for readers as his topic is one I would like to know more about. Finally, Klamm’s essay topic is a quite unique and different one. I personally do not know a huge amount about cannibalism, but Klamm’s essay has the intentions of teaching me a little bit about it. She does a tremendous job of keeping my attention, as I never thought I would be so interested in cannibalism. She uses strong power verbs and describes the types of cannibalism with a variety of strong adjectives.
7 Hanson
As we continue the process of writing the causal essay, my table mates have composed essays that are quite astounding. To start, Van Kalsbeek has some very good sentence starters which really entices me to keep reading her essay. Another great thing about Van Kalsbeek’s essay was her smooth transitions from paragraph to paragraph, these really help her essay flow. In Livingston's essay, I thought the use of short and simple paragraphs was a great idea. I think it is a good idea due to those short paragraphs getting the point of Livingston's essay across without added fluff. Also Livingston had minimal use of the word very in his essay, which makes his essay sound smooth and not repetitive. Lastly, I really liked the use of the hypothetical question that Livingston had all throughout his essay. Riley’s essay was also nicely composed, and her topic is quite interesting. One thing I liked about Riley’s essay was all the stats that were given in her essay, it felt like I was reading a report done by a research team. Also in Riley’s essay I liked how she outlined and broke down insomnia from stating when you should see your doctor to differentiating between chronic and acute insomnia. Similar to Riley’s essay, I liked the use of statistics in Knutson’s essay. Knutson has some good sentence structure, some of her sentences are long and inform the reader a great deal about her topic. Livingston’s use of short sentences was another great point about his essay. Those short sentences help get his point across and makes the reader think deeply about his ideas that he is writing about. Also with Knutson’s essay, I found the use of a survey, from the high school, was perfect for her topic. This allows the readers to get a sense of what the demographic at BVHS feel about her topic.
7 Riley
The causal essays I am beginning to read are the ones of my table mates: Knutson, Hanson, Livingston, and Van Kalsbeek. Each and everyone of them are well written but there are different little things that stand out to me in each of them. I first started by reading Kayla Knutsons essay, I found it very interesting and it definitely kept me reading. I thought she did a wonderful job not overusing transition words, and she also used larger vocabulary words that made her essay stand out to me. Nothing seems out of place in her essay, it flows very nice and I think she did a very impressive job writing and composing it! Van Kalsbeek also did an awesome job on her essay, she was able to capture my attention through her writing and her topic, I could create multiple mental pictures in my mind as I read through her essay. Van Kalsbeek did a very good job using a variety of words throughout her essay instead of using dull, boring words. This makes it less boring and more intriguing to read. Hanson’s essay I found to be one that kept me reading. It is amazing that in 2012 the world has 967 million smokers from around the world. That is a ton! I liked how he incorporated facts into his essay, it definitely makes his essay more valid and that way it is easier to understand. Hanson also used strong verbs and great adjectives that stood out to me more than other essays. My last table mates essay to read was Livingstons. He wrote in a way that made his topic easy to understand. I also learned more about homeless people and what they go through and how certain jobs won’t accept them. He did a great job keeping my attention and using strong powerful verbs to help us understand his essay. I found all of my table mates essays to be great and I also learned a lot of new information!
3 Schroder
As my table members: Wheeler, Olthoff, and Bachman, continue to write their essays, I have noticed significant progress within each. They have all shown great writing styles and have used great amounts of creativity within their essay. As I have observed each piece of work, I have noticed that each member has their own unique way of sparking up their writing with things such as powerful verbs, great sentence starters, and detailed adjectives. Olthoff started off his essay with a story of a school shooting which really got me hooked on his writing and made me want to keep reading further and further on. He used a great variation of words when starting his sentences, not using the same boring ones over and over again. This helps the essay seem more interesting and less blah. Olthoff’s topic interested me quite a bit, so I would like to read it when it is finally complete. Wheeler’s essay was very informational and intriguing as well. She had very powerful verbs and she did not have many expletives at all. Compelling adjectives were used to start some of her sentences, which allowed for great sentence starter variation. Sentences were started differently by using appositives, prepositional phrases, questions, and even dependent clauses. Bachman’s essay was interesting to read. He provided great information on his topic, using bigger words that made him sound remarkably smart, but not too overpowering to understand. His adjectives helped me picture in my mind what he was trying to describe. This shows that his creativity is very powerful and that he used good word choices. Bachman did not use very many expletives and he also limited the word very in his essay significantly. Avoiding those two items can give an essay more life and help the reader invest themselves more into the reading itself. I hope that in my essay I can incorporate these things as well as my table mates are doing.
6 Long
The causal essays are finally starting to come together for most people in my group. I know many have struggled trying to find sources and to properly cite them. The most difficult was actually having to go to the library to research your topic by reading about it in a book. Also, making sure your citations have proper punctuation and follow the correct format is also a daunting task. In Zajicek’s essay, I really liked her introductory paragraph. She tells a story and follows it with a rhetorical question, which she then proceeds to answer throughout the rest of the essay. It provides an interesting start to the essay, and makes you want to keep reading. Loosbrock uses very good word choice throughout his entire essay, and uses good verbs that provide more description than a common verb would. He changes up his sentence structure, and doesn’t use the same sentence type throughout the essay. Making it easy to read, Loosbrocks essay is coming along great and I’m sure it will turn out terrific. I think Thompson’s topic (reasons that people watch horror films) that she decided to write about is super interesting. It would definitely be an article I would read if i was bored at home, and it explains the reasoning behind the phenomenon oh why humans enjoy being scared while sitting in their basement. One thing that I believe I need to work on for my own essays is better transitions between paragraphs. In Hokenstad’s essay, she uses really good transitions when transferring from talking about one topic to another. She also uses rhetorical questions in her introduction paragraph to get readers more interested in the topic. She provides solid points for why humans are social creatures which helps the readers get a better understanding of her overall essay. I can tell my tablemates are putting a lot of effort into their papers, and I’m sure it will all pay off when they all turn out great!
1 Hauge
I really admire Quanbeck’s intro paragraph. He asks a question, immediately answers it, and then provides a block quote from the founder of his topic he is discussing. He explains lightly a bit more about his topic making his reader interested to keep reading. As Quanbeck transitions into his next paragraph he eases into talking about his topic. He does not overwhelm his reader with tons of information at the start.
Mikkelsen starts off her essay with a very thought provoking statement about her topic. It made me curious and I wanted to know what else she had to say. In her intro paragraph she asks a question then immediately answers it which I think flows very nicely. She states some sentences very blunt and frank, but I like it because it is cut and dry straight to the point, and no sugarcoating. Her transition sentences in every new paragraph are very well written and it keeps the reader’s interest.
Reindl explains what how his topic has evolved throughout time and what has become more important and what has been obsessed over. In his transition sentence from the intro paragraph to his first point he makes a statement but then makes the reader second guess. It is a very nice part of his essay because it makes the reader stop and take a moment to think about it. The reader is more likely to continue reading as well.
Brandsrud’s title immediately draws me in being that he compares what he is writing about to weapons. He then starts off his essay with a question already getting the reader to think and then answering his own question. His first paragraph is all questions and answers really getting the reader’s mind turning. In his intro sentence to and from a paragraph he uses the words minor or major, creating an opinion that the reader may agree too or tend to disagree with.
3 Myers
By reading the causal essays from my tablemates, it is clear that they have all gain new writing skills. My table had discussed during our fifteen minutes in class that this essay had been more difficult than the other that we have already done this semester. Our biggest problem was actually finding a topic to write about. After reading through all of the five of the essay at my table, they all seem to be coming along nicely. One of the essays that I read was written by Mendoza. Her topic about is why people drink alcohol and I think that it is very interesting and up with the times. Talking with Mendoza about the last essay that she wrote she was tell the table that she was having trouble with different sentence structures. She would often start the sentence with “they” or “the”. After reading the causal essay this problem has clearly been fixed. Buteyn also had a cool topic. He wrote about why people play sports. To myself, this is extremely relatable because I am also a student athlete. He uses different sentence structures that flow easily. I think that he has incorporated his facts and quotes well and overall his essay is coming along well. Another essay that I read is written by DeCurtins. I think that everyone can relate to his topic about the presidential election in coming up in a couple days. All the points he makes in the essay are clearly true and this makes me want to keep reading it. When reading his essay I scanned for words such as “very” and “there are/is” and there were not many, if not none. He also adding his survey questions in nicely which make the essay flow more. Poole’s essay is an essay I think that all seniors should read. Her essay is very informational and I think could persuade more teenagers to vote. Overall her essay uses good verbs and adjectives and changes up her sentence structure well. Even if a reader wasn’t interested in politics, I think the reader would stay interested with Poole’s essay.
6 Koehn
The causal essays are now coming to an end, and classmates are putting all their thoughts into one magnificent essay. I believe that most students have struggled finding plenty of valuable sources to back up their essays but they finally got the hang of it. This essay will help us for college when we have to do many more research papers. I really enjoyed reading Campbell’s essay; the topic she decided to write about it very intriguing. I also enjoyed how she started off her introductory paragraph with rhetorical questions. Campbell also did a pretty good job at starting each sentence off a little differently. Clemenson’s introductory paragraph is magnificent. He is using lots of interesting facts and research to get his readers interested right from the beginning. I also enjoyed how Clemenson uses a hypothetical story to help readers understand that criminal behavior is not solely based off living environments. Although Clemenson is not yet finished with his essay, I believe he is on the right track to making his essay phenomenal. Baldridge also has a very interesting and fascinating topic (Why do people live in SD) that most of us have probably asked ourselves before. Baldridge seems to be struggling with expanding on her topic. Although Baldridge is struggling to expand on her topic, I believe she will find a way to make the length requirement because her subtopics within her whole essay have great potential and the ability to really key in her sole audience of South Dakotans. Lindemann does a great job at personalizing her essay. When I am reading her essay I feel as I she is pouring out her emotions into this essay. Her topic (tattoos) seems to have great significance to her. She also does a great job at varying her structure pattern. Lindemann makes sure not to start off her sentence with many “there are/is." She also does a great job at leaving out banal vocabulary and verbs. Each and everyone of these essays has shown me different ways of how to make my essay more intriguing and what I can improve on.
1 Brandsrud
At my table, I have four other students: Reindl, Quanbeck, Mikkelsen, and Houge. Beginning with Reindl: I found that he had a variety of different sentence structures that kept his essay very interesting to the reader; specifically in the intros and conclusions of each and every paragraph, each introduction left me feeling curious, contrasting each conclusion which left me satisfied. In his conclusion paragraph, I found to be not only satisfied with the ideas that he had transmitted, but I also felt compelled to read on, to learn more as to why humans desire to have the latest technology. Next, Quanbeck. The major points that I believe that Quanbeck did very well on include how well he paraphrased his research and used the information in a way that was effective and backed what he was saying well. I also thought that his use of a question to open the entirety of the essay was a smart move as he gave the reader something to ponder then he immediately answered the question. Finally, I enjoyed how Quanbeck included a picture of the survey that was conducted to help the reader fully understand what he was saying. Next, I read the essay composed by Mikkelsen. I felt that she had great paragraph transitions; each paragraph stated a completely new idea while still being tied back to her central theme. I also liked how she used summaries of specific experiments conducted to help drive her thesis forward. Finally, I enjoy learning about history, so I enjoyed how Mikkelsen had a full paragraph specifically for the summary of the history of studying sleep. My final table mate Houge, does many things extremely well in her writing. One thing is that I enjoyed how she first opened up the essay with the intro. It tells a short story of a mother trying to first enroll her child in a dance class and it tells of all of the hypothetical situations that could arise; within that story I especially enjoyed how she told of both the mother’s thoughts and of the daughter’s thoughts, this added a nice touch to the story, even though it was so short. Next I enjoyed how her paragraphs were very well linked together to form complete thoughts that explained her reasoning and ideas well to the reader.
6 Runia
Upon reading the causal essays of my table mates, I found many impressive qualities. Beckman made intriguing use of italics in her second paragraph. These italics served to emphasize her point and to captivate her audience with the individuality of her writing. In her third paragraph, Beckman uses parallel sentence beginnings. She begins each contiguous sentence with the same three words: “fast forward to”. Rather than being repetitive, this interests her audience and adds to the point she is making. To conclude this unique construction, Beckman again uses italics, which effectively piques the interest of the audience and stresses her point. Beckman also succeeds at varying her sentence length. Her essay can be read smoothly because she uses a combination of both lengthy and brief sentences. Reading her essay would be much more difficult if she used only long sentences and run-ons or if she used only short sentences. Thus, Beckman’s essay contains many impactful attributes that I can employ to spice up my own essay.
Johnke has also composed a magnificent essay. His introduction paragraph is astonishingly vivid. The reader feels as if he or she is directly present for the plastic bag’s journey. Additionally, his sentence variety is above par. He starts some sentences with nouns, but he starts other sentences with adverbs, prepositional phrases, and even the occasional coordinating conjunction. Johnke also excels in his use of strong verbs. He limits linking verbs in his essay and instead fascinates his audience with extraordinary and powerful verbs. For example, he utilizes the verb “terrorized” in his essay, which is powerful and unique. He enthralls his audience, as a result. In addition, Johnke avoids bland expletives in his essay. This helps his sentence variety and captures the attention of his audience. Therefore, Johnke makes use of fascinating and admirable composition elements that I am able to learn from and inject into my own essays.
Sherron does not have a causal essay, but her other essays are exemplary. Her comparison-contrast essay has marvelous paragraph transitions. This allows for smooth reading and greatly enhances her essay. She also uses a variety of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. This keeps her essay from sounding boring and repetitive. Additionally, she differs her sentence starters, beginning her sentences with an assortment of nouns, adverbs, and gerunds. So, Sherron composes beautiful and unique essays, such as her comparison-contrast essay, that I can familiarize myself with. I can then apply some of her strategies to my essays. After examining the exemplary work created by each of my table mates, I hope to improve upon my own writing.
6 Zajicek
Ms. Long had a very interesting topic. Throughout Long’s essay she kept me interested and informed. In the essay I found throughout her essay she used examples that were very relatable and were based on current times to further interest and relate to readers. Long also made it clear that she knew what she was talking about with the occurring facts in her essay. After obtaining various facts about laughter from Long I moved onto Hokenstad’s essay where she researched the phenomenon on why people are affected by socialization. I found this essay very interesting. This phenomenon is one we face every day but don’t pay much attention to so writing this essay was a very good idea on her behalf. This essay was written with very well described topics. The words Hokenstad used in her essay made it easy for a reader like me to paint a picture of what these examples would look like. Along with Ms. Long’s essay Hokenstad made her examples very relevant to current times making it relatable to students. Thompson, along with my other table mates, had a very interesting essay that I myself have questioned. Thompson wrote about why people find enlightenment watching horror films. Thompson did a good of thoroughly explaining each emotion one will go through when watching these types of films. She also dug deep into her research finding topics that impact one's emotions that I myself would not of thought of. For example, Thompson writes about how background music and its pitch can affect how one feels watching horror movies. All three of these girls do an excellent job getting their point across clearly to the readers and while doing so they use real life examples that are relatable to students. I would highly recommend reading any one of these girls essays!
1 Harvison
Willard and I have about the same topic so I am finding it very interesting to read through his to see if we have similar ideas or opinions. I find he does an excellent job of incorporating advanced vocabulary while still managing to make this essay easy to follow. I admire how he is able to change up his sentence structure, often setting up his sentences to make you question your own thoughts before continuing onto his own. Throughout his essay I believe he only used the bland word ‘very’ a few times and instead opted for words that added much more interest within his essay. We have similar reasons as to why drug use is increasing but the way we have chosen to explain those ideas starts to differ. Talcott chose to write about how teenagers do not receive enough sleep, I think this is very relevant as a high school schooler who finds myself tired very often. I enjoyed how he used short sentences within his introduction paragraph such as “The alarm clock.” or “No much, much worse.” It adds a sense of suspense within this first paragraph. Still within his first paragraph he includes a set of sentences phrased as questions, this gives the reader time to think for themselves about possible answers before he will go on to explain for himself. Talcott also adds variety to his sentences by structuring each one a little different. Beck wrote her essay about underage drinking, which is also relevant to today’s society. Her first sentence contains a statistic, I think this sets the tone for the essay and shows the reader how serious this problem has become. I think out of our table group she has done the best job at incorporating the vocabulary from the book. Overall I think it will always be helpful to read over other’s work to help improve your own.
McGee 6
My table mates are Matt Eigenberg, Brooke Etrheim, Kate Forster, and Emily Kluin. First I took a look at Mr. Eigenberg’s essay, he had a great intro that really sucked me into his essay. He talked about Adam and Eve and the lye that caused them to sin. Eigenberg also did a great job of having good intros to his paragraphs. He also has a good title for his essay that makes his essay seem like it will be a good, interesting read. Ms. Etrheim also had a great into to her essay, she described the experience of a roller coaster, really making you interested in what the rest of her essay is about. The statistics from her survey really added to her essay and helped convey her point. Ms. Brooke Etrheim also has a very creative title, it is called “Through all the Ups and Downs”, I think this is a great title (considering her essay is about roller coasters). Kate Forster did a good job of varying her sentence length. Etrheim also did a very good job of sliding her vocab words into her essay without making the words seem out of place or awkward. Ms. Forster also did a good job of backing of her reason, she had great facts and stats that really added to her essay. Forster also did a good job of having credible sources. Emily Kluin also did a good job of sentence length variation. Ms. Kluin did a very good job of avoiding starting sentences with there are or there is. Ms. Emily Kluin also did a good job of having interesting and attention grabbing paragraph starters. Kluin use of her block quote was very good, and the information held within the block quote was also very good. All of my table mates had very good essays. They all did a great job of really captivating the audience with a good, interesting intro paragraph.
1Top
Writing our Causal Essay has come easily for me. Although I have had luck writing my essay, I realize I need help. Being open to ideas has helped me become a quick-witted and effective writer. In Vielmette’s essay he first sets up his essay in an outline and bases his thoughts off of it while writing. I tried his style of work and I believe it has been the main result of my success. Rarely I have very intelligent ideas, but when I do they do not fit in my essay at the point of my thought, hence why I have started writing comments on my own essay so I do not forget to add it later. I aquired this idea from Konz’s essay. In her essay her thoughts are concise, but well thought out. Sentence starters are something I struggle with. She has studied the different sentence structures and styles on her essay which helps me see them put to use. I like how in Galbavy’s essay he starts his paragraphs with sub ideas and gradually gets to the main point. I think this encourages the reader to continue reading on and captures their attention. Galbavy’s transitions are very well placed, making the flow of his essay much more appealing. Looking at the essays of my pears has greatly influenced my own writing. Our skills vary and we can help each other in different areas.
1 Willard
Talcott did a fantastic job of personifying the topic that his essay discusses, the alarm clock. He describes it as being a “horrid reveille,” and then proceeds to discuss the real evil involved. This level of personified description not only helps but also allows the reader to better empathize with the idea that he is trying to convey. Talcott also does a good job of clearly stating the points that introduce each paragraph, therefore avoiding deviation and ultimately digression. In other words, he does a good job of staying on topic. Harvison creates effective sentences by adjusting grammatical structure in order to essentially emphasize the severity of the issue. Another thing that I personally very much appreciate is the fact that not once in her essay did she use the word “very” - which is indeed quite a difficult task. Therefore, the adverbs that she did employ the use of happened to carry a bit more prevalence. Beck does a good job of incorporating the stipulated vernacular in her essay without breaking her “written stride.” Talcott also does a good job of avoiding starting sentences with the oh so very evil “weak expletives.” Few of his sentences start with the words this or that, but rather, the sentence structure is altered in order to avoid having to do so. He also does a fantastic job of employing the use of varying analogies in order to once again emphasize the points that he is trying to get across. Using that sort of “symbolism,” if you will, especially in an essay that is supposed to be purely factual and speculative, is actually quite difficult. Talcott also uses some fairly advanced adverbs in order to avoid using words that suggest a sense of literary weakness, which, in my opinion, is most certainly a good thing.
Headrick 1
As I began reading Zoey’s essay, I became inundated with that many people have fears of clowns. The horrendous fear is called Coulrophobia. I applaud Zoey for grabbing my attention and sucking me into the world of clowns. Her intro was expertly written and made me want to carry on. Reading on, Zoey has a nice layout of the body paragraphs. She starts out with the physical appearance of clowns and why that scares most people. The next one is that we could be afraid of them since they are covered by masks. She goes on to write about how clowns and movies conditioned us to being afraid and lastly how traumatic experiences like bobo the clown experiment has conditioned us to be afraid of clowns. She also brings it to present times with all the clown sightings around the world today.
As I start reading the Tank’s essay, it starts off with a question that I get asked many times a week. “Hey are you Alright?” Now I get asked this because of different circumstances than his essay but it still grabbed me and brought me into his essay. His essay’s subject, I think, is very cool and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the essay. His topic is why we hid our feelings which I’ve seen many people do in school and outside school with parents. His title is also intriguing and pulls you into his essay.
Jeniqua’s essay is well written. Her title is catchy and attracts you to her essay about meditation. Her vocabulary is well pieced into her essay and I applaud her for this. Also her sources are terrific and plentiful. She also does a history of why we meditate and the origins all the way back to buddha’s time. It really enlighten me in the world of meditation.
1Beck
My three tablemates are Jack Talcott, Lily Harvison, and James Willard. I first started by reading Jack’s essay. He made his sentences very intriguing and made me want to keep reading. He made his essay relate to students and why we do things we do which made it even easier to read since I could fully understand what he was trying to say. He uses good sentence starters to keep the sentence interesting and keep me interested. Next, I read Lily’s essay. Lily was very good about explaining big words that she uses in her essay so that everyone will be able to understand what they mean and so they can fully comprehend what she is saying. She dug deep into her research so that she could find many facts about drug use and be able to explain why people do drugs, that most people fall into drug addictions without even noticing it or trying to fall in. She does very good to elaborate on everything that she does. She also is very good about completing her thoughts and giving us all the information that we need to be able to fully understand her essay and the full meaning behind it. Lastly, I read James’s essay. At the start of reading his essay I knew it would be good. Even in the beginning he is using very good sentence starters and avoiding weak expletives. He did very well at using words to get the reader hooked and keep them hooked throughout the entire essay. He had very good information to include from all the research that he has done which makes his essay even better. By him being able to incorporate this information in a productive way helps his essay be a smooth read. All three of my tablemates had wonderful essays that use good word language, wonderful sentence starters, and do a good job of avoiding weak expletives. By being able to do this and keep it going throughout their entire essay will only make them better.
Hoffmann 1
The first thing I noticed as I read Jeanson’s essay was her use adverbs that were not “very.” Rather than saying “very damaging,” she said “caused severe damage.” Instead of a simple “very,” she uses adverbs such as “extremely” and “enormously.” In addition, Jeanson does a good job of starting her sentences with something other than the subject. This helps with sentence variety and makes the essay as a whole more interesting to read. Good example of sentence variety include her second sentence, which begins with the phrase, “With one or two of these insatiable beings,” and then goes on to introduce the subject and state the rest of the sentence. A final thing that I will state here (although these are not the only things she did well) is Jeanson’s variety in sentence length. Again, varying the length keeps the essay interesting as a whole, especially when creatively including fragments and extra-lengthy sentences just for fun and effect.
Moving on to Powell’s essay, I would say that the most obvious and strongest writing strategy that Powell uses in his prose is to use diverse verbs and avoid linking verbs. Using strong verbs leads to strong, effective sentences that make a firm statement, which in turn leads to a strong essay with a flowing, “together-ness” feel to it without seeming repetitive or boring because of constant uses of the verbs “is,” “are,” “was,” “were,” and etc. Hand in hand with Powell’s diverse verb choices comes a general strong and diverse verbiage that lends even more strength to the essay, capturing the reader’s interest with words like “disenfranchisement.” Another thing Powell does well is to introduce quotes effectively and avoiding “dropped quotes” errors. An effective introduction of the evidence before presenting either a quote verbatim or paraphrasing the source makes the essay flow better and to me makes his evidence more effective, helping his argument.
1 Klamm
I enjoy how presler added specific instances that most people could relate easily to. This helps the reader connect to her essay and enjoy her essay more than one with less specific examples. She also uses examples of media that has exploded in very recent times. She does not use anything from a long time ago helping the reader connect even better. The reader might have seen the ranch girl today and wondered why it went viral. Presler also has amazing word choice. You read her essay and find words like diversified, expansive, and exceedingly. These words pop out at you and make her essay more enjoyable to read. I really liked how Ellis added humor into her introduction paragraph. This makes the reader intrigued about what she has to say and they want to read more to see if any other jokes come up. Ellis also uses specific examples in her essay allowing the reader to connect more. She also includes youtube videos like “Don't Hug Me I’m Scared” that some readers might not know about. Including these could make the reader search for the video and make their knowledge about her paper more expansive. Ellis includes emotions that people can connect with in her essay. Having these emotions helps the reader to be more emotionally involved in her essay and want to keep reading. It also helps them to remember what she said later on in their lives. Meyer includes examples that are very interesting and intriguing at the beginning of his essay. This makes the reader want to learn more tidbits and continue reading his essay. At the beginning of paragraphs he also includes interesting facts to make readers want to read that paragraph more. He also includes some parts in his essay that people could sympathise with which makes them remember his essay later on.
7 Mork
Chase Grode is writing about why humans strive for success and why they are so competitive. I found one weak expletive in his first paragraph, but if he changes it will be a good sentence. It reads, “There is no elevator to success; you must take the stairs.” Chase has a good intro paragraph! I found the word “very” used once in his essay on the third page. That would also be an easy change to improve his essay. Overall I liked the transitions he used to go from paragraph to paragraph as he tied success into each intro. He had good information and I could relate to some of the things he said.
MaRena Dybdahl is writing about the reasons for criminal behavior. Her introductory paragraph is well written and incorporates good information. She uses a lot of deeper level words in her paragraph that sound great and add good details and aspects to her paragraph. MaRena’s topic has so much facts that can be incorporated and I think she did a good job deciding what she should include in her essay. Overall I know she has a little bit more to write, but her essay is off to a great start! Her transitions from paragraph to paragraph are pretty good. Some of the words that I found were used well in her paragraph include: hyperactive, turmoil, and delinquents.
Rohan Singh is writing about the cause of American obesity. I think that Rohan’s introductory paragraph is outstanding! He introduces with facts that indicate that obesity is the cause of a lot of deaths as well as health problems. This leads him into the reasons why America struggles with obesity problems. Rohan does a great job transitioning from sentence to sentence as well as from paragraph to paragraph. I found the weak expletive “there is” once in his paragraph. Changing that should be easy and will improve his essay. Rohan had interesting facts and his overall essay was well written.
7 Grode
As we have been progressing through the year, I have noticed that my table mates have been progressing too. Each person at my table has been doing a lot better job at blending their essays and making them their own since we first started the class. In Mork’s essay, I really like how she asked questions in her intro because it got me thinking about the topic and relating it to my own life--this is a great way to keep readers interested and attract readers who normally would not read an essay of this type. I like how she made me actually think about what I was reading, instead of just blindly reading the essay. She also used a lot of good adjectives that spiced up her essay and kept me interested--it was not just boring old adjectives, verbs and adverbs like very. She used words like excitedness, unpredictability, engrossing, shocking, serge, and so on. I also like how she blends all of her citations into her essay instead of just randomly shoving them where they do not belong with no context. Next I read Singh’s essay. I really liked his topic (Obesity), and he had a lot of interesting citations that blended well with his essay. He makes a lot of really good points such as people just sitting at home on their couches watching sporting events and not actually getting up and attending them. I also like how he transitions from paragraph to paragraph. He starts out with a strong sentence that states exactly what his paragraph is going to be about. I read Dybdahl’s essay next. I liked how she hardly used and weak adverbs such as very and hardly any weak expletives. She did a great job of using words and phrases that helped her essay flow, and she transitioned into each subtopic beautifully, which also really helped her essay flow.
7 Jensen
I began reading one of my table partners essay, Ms. Huska. Ms. Huska had marvelous transition words for each sentence, and paragraph. Instead of using the basic words such as, the, it, there, and while she just starting typing making each sentence begin unique. For each of her paragraph she did not make them too lengthy, but the perfect length without being redundant or missing important information. Surprisingly, she did not use the word very at all besides if it showed up in everyone, or everything which was only used twice. She also only used the word there twice, and the term this only once. Ms. Huska kept her essay interesting and kept me captivated, while being straight to the point. Along with her word choices, Ms. Huska used a variety of vocabulary terms making her sound intelligent and interesting. Words such as, manifest, irreversible, and neurodevelopment, while being big words were easy for me to comprehend. After reading Ms. Huska’s essay I read Mr. Munson’s essay. Reading the first paragraph I immediately became interested in Mr. Munsons essay. I loved how in each sentence he tried to begin with different words and his sentence structure shows he knows what he is talking about. You can definitely tell that Mr. Munson loves baseball and picked a topic he obviously cares and loves. Because he picked a topic so dear to his heart the essay was so easy for me to understand and for him to just write about it. Mr. Munsons vocabulary was spectacular. The words, juggernaut, polarizing, and supplanting were great word choices and these were alone only in the first paragraph! After reading both of these essays it gave me insight on how to improve my own essay and how to become a better writer.
7 Else
Reading my table mates' papers, I realize that their papers are extremely well written, and they may be better than mine. Tingle’s paper truly grabs your attention with the title “Why Student Get Stressed (YES I CHANGED MY TOPIC CAUSE MY OTHER ONE WAS HELL AND NOW I AM STRESSED)” If that title does not scream entertaining, I am not sure what does. Reading Tingle’s paper, I find it extremely interesting and the title reflects her paper greatly. Although Tingle does not have a lot written, her paper looks like she meticulously scrutinized each sentence. I enjoy how Wickersham’s first paragraph makes me relive a constant nightmare I have. Even if you have not had this particular nightmare, Wickersham’s paper will make you feel like you have. The introduction paragraph is extremely descriptive and well written. I also like how Wickersham’s paper states the theories psychological, neurological, physiological, and hereditary as a “paramount for you in order to not be frightened when you have an abnormal dream.” I think that Wickersham’s reasons all blend together very well. I also think that Wickersham has exemplary introduction sentences for each paragraph. I am not very good at transitioning into a new paragraph, but Wickersham is. As an actor, I appreciate Bogensberger’s essay about why people are affected by stage fright. Similar to Wickersham, her introduction paragraph is very descriptive helps me understand what she is conveying to me. I can also tell that Bogensberger did a large amount of research to write this paper. Bogensberger is also working currently on her conclusion, but what she has so far truly sums up her paper. A good introduction paragraph and conclusion paragraph really make a paper extraordinary in my opinion, and Bogensberger has mastered that.
7 Bogensberger
As we continue to work on our causal essays, I look toward my table mates to help me with my grammar, word variety, and even give me some inspiration. Reading their essays broadened my knowledge on writing, they help give me new ideas for my essay. In Else’s essay, he has an interesting topic and as you read through it, you become filled with so much information on peer pressure. Else uses great examples to back up his topic and it helps the reader to comprehend it even more. With all the informative sources he has throughout his paper, they really assist in helping the reader understand why people do certain things like drugs and alcohol. He has awesome transitions and rarely uses the same sentence starters. Else is always very passionate about his topics and really writes in depth. Same with Tingle’s essay, she thoroughly explains her topic and she has great transitions. She does not leave any details out and she has so many facts provided as to why students get stressed. Tingle knows how to intrigue the reader to make them want to read even more. She incorporates humor in her essay and I think that is what gave her essay such a strong start. Wickersham’s intro does a great job of grabbing your attention and forcing us to want to read more. He has an unusual yet interesting topic that I am sure many people have wondered about. He provides a variety of reasons on why people experience dreams of falling which really helps give people the answer to this phenomenon. Wickersham uses strong vocab to make his essay sound even more upper level. His paragraphs flow nicely and are sp alberate. All in all, I believe all my table mates have fantastic topics and I know their writing is not done but so far they are all off to a great start.
7 Wickersham
Tingle has a very nice introduction to her essay. She starts off with a “quote”, but it is a laughable quote because she follows it up with “Said literally no one ever”. It automatically has the reader interested because you can feel the passion and stress many students have. She also says that school is “satan’s home”. Stress is not something that is laughed about because it is harsh and a huge burden for many students. She does a good job of making it a serious topic, but not ulta-melo to the reader.
Else’s essay is one that really captures my interest. He is writing about how social media almost forces people to act a certain way or do a certain thing. He talks about peer pressure and the influence one person has on another. People tend to think that they are their own person and do things their own way, but Else argues that social media and friends influence one another to act like they do and “go with the flow”. I also like how he uses recent trends in his essay like the water bottle flip, killer clowns, Pokemon Go, and even Brandon Valley’s own Ranch Girl. He also suggests that peer pressure can not just be about bad morals, but they influence trends as well.
Bogensberger has what I believe to be the best introductory paragraph out of them all. She begins with telling a story of a nervous person about to give a speech in front of the class. She has great visual details such as the “sweaty hands and shaky voice” one gets when giving a speech. Almost everyone has been in the situation of stage fright and her introductory makes me nervous and makes my stomach churn just reading about it. Then after she captures your attention, she goes on to say why you feel the way you do and what causes your stage fright.
Huska7
The causal essays written by my table mates: Munson, Broekemeier, and Jensen all had a unique and new feel about each topic written. Munson wrote about baseball and why it is no longer America's favorite sport. He went on to talk about how it was taken over by American football and then added in many facts that helped improve the overall researchy feel of the paper. Munson used exciting and new words that did not repeat throughout the paper that made it seem written by a more advanced student. He made his paragraphs long and thorough making it known that he has researched and knows a lot about the subject he is writing about. Jensen took a route that not many people would think of and talked about why Christmas is more important than Thanksgiving or any other holiday. I find this topic interesting to read about because I have never thought about writing about a topic so simple. Jensen managed to use different transition words than the normally overused words such as “it is” “they are” “then” and so on. She used these words at the beginning and throughout her paragraphs that dove into the underlying thoughts about Christmas. Broekemeier wrote about why people assume that everyone is going to go to college after high school. He managed to write a paper bringing in everyone’s thoughts about why people are practically being forced by society to go to college after high school. Throughout his paper he did not use overused words such as very or a lot to get his message across. Instead, he used words such as quite and plenty to spice up his writing and not make it repetitive and boring. Reading all of their papers helped give me a boost to spice up my writing and make sure that it was eye catching and not boring to read.
3 November 2016
3 Smit
Ms. Keuter’s essay has plenty of research to justify her position throughout her essay. Following up on a few of the sources has helped my understanding immensely. After reading her essay, I became far more interested in the study of violence and found direction for further, personal study. Also, Ms. Keuter continued to ask thought provoking questions throughout the body of her essay, making the reader ponder their stance on the subject. Incorporating photos into her essay keeps readers interested as they consider the drive for murder.
Mr. Bowman starts his essay out with a wonderful little story to relate his topic to our own daily lives. The story flows well and is detailed enough that I could really picture the scene well. His implementation of quotations is marvelous, weaving well with the text surrounding it. Introducing ideas from both the psychological and biological standpoints provides a well rounded comprehension of the text. Throughout his essay, the content never strays too far from the original topic as to be considered irrelevant. Mr. Bowman explains each topic well, allowing the reader to easily understand the subject at hand.
I do really like the topic that Ms. Braley had chosen for her essay. Pulled off correctly, it can be very inspiring and informational on a topic that many do not think about. The research she used is very interesting and provokes the reader to contemplate their own tendency to follow the voice of authority.
Ms. Casey has plenty of ideas to share; although, she needs to find a little direction in which to present them. She, comparable to the others, include questions that challenge personal morals. The structure garnered through research articles is lacking. I feel that with a bit more scholarly support, her paper will be able to describe the malicious relationship humans have with lying quite well.
3 Mendoza
Poole has thought of great causes in her essays. She chose a good topic in which she can compose five pages worth of material. She has great gerunds throughout her essay and has a great variety of sentence structure. She has compound-complex sentences, simple sentences, and a great amount of complex sentences. Her diction is well varied and not overbearing.
Myers has a very interesting topic as well. She has great paragraph transitions and her essay seems to flow smoothly, without any awkward interruptions. She is very speculative and that is key in this essay. Interesting facts are present throughout her essay without it being too much. She goes into detail about all the factors of christmas, from the christmas tree to how it initially began. She has very little sentences that start with the subject and has great sources.
Buteyn also has a good topic on why people play sports. This essay can be quite beneficial to people who don’t play sports and want to know why people do it in the first place. He included reasons that involved scholarship money, which I can relate to as well. The overall structure of his essay is very good.
DeCurtins is writing about The Presidential election, which I think is very interesting. He goes into detail about each individual candidate, which makes this essay more interesting. His essay can inform students on each side, and can persuade them to vote. He demonstrates how incompetent Donald Trump is with his conspiracy theories on the government and President Obama himself. He goes into detail on the qualifications of each candidate and lets the audience make their own decision. He is not biased, which I feel is a good thing.
3 Wheeler
I saw that Bachman had a lot of good vocab use. There were places where it would have been easier to use a simple word, but instead he used a more specific, detailed word that made it sound better. He also has very good transitions at the end of paragraphs. The last lines of his paragraphs lead into the next paragraph, which makes the whole thing flow quite nicely and pleasantly. I also thought he did a good job with sentence variation. I didn’t feel like I was reading the same sentence over and over again.
I really liked the way Olthoff started his essay. It was very compelling and made me want to keep reading. His introduction was like a story, which was fascinating. He does start with his subject over and over again, but instead of being boring and tedious, the repetition makes you really focus on the people doing the action, rather than what the action is. With the topic of the “story” it would be easy for the reader to start focusing on the less important background people rather than the actual shooters, so it is a good strategy to force the reader to stay on topic. His story is written in a way that speaks, rather than talks--a distinction not all understand. Rather than just being a bunch of sentences thrown together, it actually sounds like something you would hear a teacher or a reporter discuss, rather than some stuffy report.
The way that Woessner writes sounds almost like an article you would read in a newspaper. He uses simple, yet not dull or immature, explanations. His sentence structure variation almost seems to follow some specific pattern. His sentences do use common expletives at the start, and some sections do sound very choppy, but over all his sentences work around each other.
3Bowman
My tablemates would include Zach, Victoria, Cierra, and Amy. Each individual has shown tremendous progression, thus far into the year, in their writing abilities, delineated in their essays. While perusing through Zach’s essay, I noticed that he had amazing sentence structure throughout. His sentences always varied in construction and effectively displayed his purpose behind the sentence. His sentences had strong subjects and complimenting verbs, giving him a very well polished, scholarly tone throughout his essay. In addition to his excellent sentence construction, Zach also included excellent and smooth paragraph transitions that allowed me to follow his train of thought effortlessly. Cierra, similarly, starts her sentences with exceptional expertise. She begins her sentences with prepositional phrases, participle phrases, interrupting modifiers, etc. With this skill being practiced, Cierra’s essay takes on a quite interesting tone as no sentence is identical to another. Furthermore, Cierra also exhibits excellent flow throughout her essay. Each sentences flawlessly flows into the next, allowing for better understanding and content feelings as one reads through her essay. Amy’s essay also baffles me, especially in the way her sentences vary in length and construction. She utilizes many different literary tools that assist her in achieving an intellectual aura throughout her essay. She craftily avoids the use of the boring “very” adverb and substitutes in much more scholarly adverbs such as “severely” and “chronically”, adding spice and variety to the fabric of her essay. Without these critical skills that Amy portrays, the purpose and engagingness of her essay would become lost in its length. Victoria, similar to all other table comrades, shows exceptional variance in her sentence lengths. She uses many different techniques in order for her sentences to grab your attention and not become annoyingly repetitive. Moreover, her vocabulary also was quite impressive as she used many different words that added flavor and diversity to her essay. Overall, my tablemates put forth exceptional pieces of work and have shown amazing progression in the past few weeks.
3 Moelter
My tablemates are Hoffman, Kueter, Roby, and Roegiers. Overall, Hoffman does a really good job at finding words other than the subject to start sentences with such as prepositions, power verbs, and transitions. Eliminating the weak expletives Hoffman uses powerful verbs such as: serves, ignites, and unprepared. Using power verbs helps to create a better understanding of the overall essay starting with just the verbs themselves. In his introduction, he started off with all the different types of greeting there are and with whom we mainly use these greeting with. He then goes on to say how such greeting are avoided by most people through the use of words like “good, well, okay, or fine.” As we use these avoiding terms to let people know we are okay when in reality we are not okay and could have just had the worst day of our lives. In Kueter introduction, I love how she is explaining a story from the third person point of view. It makes her essay stick out from our fellow classmates as most people would not think of starting off with a story. She also does a great job of transitioning between paragraphs with transitional words and prepositions. Agreeing with the reason as to why she added another paragraph in order to better understand phobias; I used this same technique in my essay. Kueter also, did a great job at finding different words to start her sentences with. In addition, she had great adverbs besides very to embellish her essay more. In Roby’s essay, she did a great job at varying the length of her sentences. She does very well also at varying the different ways to transition between both paragraphs and sentences. I think of her essay as intriguing because there are so many reasons why people laugh and only choosing a few would be hard. Also, finding sources and different books about the research in laughing would be rare and hard to find. In Roegiers essay, he has very good transitions between his paragraphs and switches between using the subject at the beginning to using prepositions or transitions. Using more power verbs than expletives, his essay contains some strong verbs that help carry the essay. Including the pie chart was a nice touch as it adds to the essay as a whole describing the how many times the students at BVHS flip water bottles throughout the week.
3Bachman
As I am writing my essay, I looked to my tablemates to seek extra knowledge that I could use in my essay. Wheeler transitioned her paragraphs very nicely, she always had a good concluding sentence at the end of her paragraphs. Having good transitional sentences to the next paragraph, was done very well by Wheeler. She started different sentences with phrases as an introduction and broke the monotonous pattern of normal sentences. Wheeler also did not overuse words that would make her essay sound choppy and made her essay flow smoothly. She used good adjectives that showed her creativity with her topic and how smart she is. Schroder had an interesting topic and a good introductory paragraph to pull the reader's attention to the topic. Her topic made me think about why I use different social media sites. Social media sites can be bullying for some people. She showed that it is more discreet than texting and other methods of contact. Schroder also used big words in her essay, but she did not use to big of words that would make her essay sound overdone. The words she used had definitions that I knew. Olthoff had a good topic and started his essay off with a story about a school shooting, which made me want to read about his thoughts of school violence and what causes it. I think everyone can read and be intrigued with Olthoff essay because of the topic. School shootings have unfortunately become more prevalent in the United States recently. Knowing one of our peers ideas about what causes these terrible events, should spark thoughts for everyone who reads his essay. Olthoff portrayed the different kinds of kids that could commit a school shooting. He illustrates that some people are just bullied and beaten down. He also showed that some have a vendetta because they are mentally ill.
1 Benitez
Causal essays are an interesting thing to read about because you see reasons for phenomenons that you would never have thought of. Especially when you get to read those of the people you sit next to and talk to everyday. An example is Zoey’s essay she is talking about the clown crisis that is afflicting our country right now. She does a great job of showing an example of clown bands that you wouldn’t classify as one but KISS. She also does a great job at using a variety words. She used words like portray, jocular, and dissemble. The sentences these words are in also vary in length and style. Doing all this, she avoided using weak expletives by only using “there is” only once. Overall Zoey has a very interesting and unique essay. The next person, the one that sits to my left, is Jennika and her essay is about meditation. In her essay she has done an impeccably good job at transitioning from one subject to the next. Rather than just saying “The next reason”, she uses a variety of sentences from examples and facts to questions. As well, she followed the rules on citing sources and they are cited correctly. She as well used an assortment of vocabulary from psychological and mindfulness to serenity. The last example being christian and his essay on the United states grading system. He did well to avoid weak expletives using only one there is. As well, he avoided writing first, next, and last as paragraph starters and started with interesting information. In the paper he has an interesting pie chart depicting information related to his subject. He does well not to use drop quotes and correctly introduces quotes. Overall everyone at my table has done an excellent job on their essays and have interesting topics.
3 Waldera
My table mate James House chose a very good topic. I also think that his use of dialogue as the introduction was very unique and different than any other essay I have had the chance to read. He also has a very wide vocabulary which I think helps move the essay in a good direction. He also used very respected sources which makes his paper all together look stronger. After reading his topic I can understand why he had the sudden urge to chose this topic over the one he had original wrote, which was about bathroom etiquette. His essay is also relatable because as a teen I too argue with my parents and in the some of the same situations presented in his essay. I think that his choice of topic lets a lot of his few class mates really relate to his essay topic. I also read Anna's paper, a fellow table mate. Her paper was about Extraversion-Introversion. She used an incredibly good vocabulary which made her paper look more scholarly. She also used some variety in sentence structures. Sentences in her paragraph were written well and she supported her main causes. As well she used a lot of book sources, in my opinion making it look more solid based, as anyone can put anything online. Another essay I had the pleasure to read was written by fellow table mate Becky Hicks. Her essay is on what makes people likable. I think this is an interesting topic because of how unique and different it is than most other topics I have seen. Her paper is well written and her transitions that she uses are varied and thought out. Her sentence structure is also varied a lot making it flow fluently easily. After reading my fellow classmates papers, I think I should attempt to make my sentences vary more and have my paragraphs transition better. I hope to add 3 books sources to strengthen my paper overall, like Anna has done, and James is in the processes of doing.
6 Kluin
McGee had a great topic for a casual essay which was very relatable and applicable to students throughout the school. She does a wonderful job of putting into words the social functionings of cliques and is able to identify many of the scenario’s we experience every day while at school, work, or home. She also varies the structure of her sentences, making the presentation of information very interesting to read. Forster’s topic elaborates on the polarization of political parties in the United States. Her topic has become all the more understandable now that I am able to vote myself for the next president of our country. Forster’s transitions in between paragraphs are fantastic, flowing smoothly between one topic to the next, using connections between the two make the development of each topic continuous and easy to comprehend, which isn’t always an easy thing to do when it comes to political issues. Plus, her use of statistics within her essay really help the reader to visualize the importance and relevance of the topic that she is writing about. Eigenberg’s topic was very interesting as well, trying to discover the reason as to why people are dishonest on surveys and questionnaires. His use of great sentence starters are superb, bringing a large amount of variation to each of the paragraphs, and the essay in general. His sources are also well placed and back up his statements well, adding all the more credibility to his writing. Etrheim’s topic was also a lot of fun and one that I relate to personally, which was why people fear roller coasters so much. The variation used in her sentence structure was also done very well along with her descriptions of why it is that some people find rides designed for entertainment purposes so frightening.
6 Hokenstad
To begin, Loosbrock’s essay was extremely well-worded and intelligent sounding, not only in vocabulary, but also with the use of various sentence starters. His essay contains many metaphors and analogies; these add description as well as evidence to his essay with his own, as well as researched information. Even though I may not agree with all of the points in his essay, I still find it to be quite intriguing due to the impeccable grammar, transitions, and vocabulary. Thompson’s strength while writing is her descriptive capability. Not only is she a great writer in the sense of imagery, but she also manages to never have her essay sound redundant. I enjoy reading her essay because her topic is extremely intriguing, but also because it flows quite smoothly and is quite easy for the reader to understand. Her transitions and introductory paragraphs flow really well and she incorporates required elements such as surveys and interview in a way that is not abrupt but very interesting. Zajicek uses great imagery throughout her essay, and it is quite easy to read. She creates a mental picture of everything she describes and it makes the reader feel as if they are being talked to directly. I quite enjoy the way she describes each sport she talks about, and explains it so even those who do not play sports can understand what she is talking about. Not only is she great at imagery, but she has a lot of sentences that to do not start with the subject, which is refreshing to read. Long’s essay has a wonderful topic and is equally as well written. I really enjoy her transitions as well as the way she uses a multitude of different words for laughing and laughter. Her whole essay has a happy tone to it, which is very fitting since her laughter is her topic. She really puts her own voice into her essay, and it sounds natural while still being very scholarly and having accurate facts. Although she has a lighthearted topic, she uses very intelligent sentence construction and smoothly includes the final exam and vocab terms. Overall, her essay is constructed extremely well and is a great example of the grammar and vocabulary students in composition should strive for.
6 Waltner
Reading through my table mates essay gives me the chance to compliment them on their magnificent attributes, while learning how I could better my own essay. I looked closely at Macy Clark’s, Layne Symington’s, and Bayleigh Holter’s essays for good paragraph transitions, sentence starters, and any other creative stylings. Macy started her essay very well with unique sentence structure by using a colon followed then by a question that does a great job of capturing my attention. She said, “Obesity: the condition of being grossly fat or overweight..so you may ask yourself, why do humans not care about their body enough to be able to provide themselves with a long, sustaining life?” This is very impressive and important as it introduces what her essay will pertain, while catching the attention of the readers at the same time by asking an open-ended question. Along with the first sentence of her essay, she does a nice job introducing each cause at the beginning of each paragraph with stellar paragraph transitions. As I examined Bayleigh’s causal essay I noticed on a few occasions she used prepositions as a introductory clause. This made her sentences much more fluid and intriguing. She also transitioned well into a paragraph by using repetition of the types of bullying--repeating the word bullying (emphasizes that there are many different types)-- and also included perfect parallelism which made the sentence sound much better than it would without it. Similar to Macy, Layne did a fantastic job composing an introductory sentence that introduces his essay very well. He also used parallelism which made the sentence flow much better than without. Also Layne used powerful verbs in his writing, rather than broad and boring linking verbs. This helped make his essay more descriptive and raises the level of the essay a lot. In the end I learned a lot about ways to improve my essay, as I was complimenting my table mates.
6Loosbrock
Long approaches her topic head-on and gets straight to the point. The only stopping point is giving short and compelling comments or observations. Her title is fantastic as it uses the uncommonly-used word “chortle”. She styles her sentences well as she constantly varies their structure. Vocabulary words are inserted expertly and seem like a natural part of her daily speech. Hokenstad writes in a very analytical fashion; her style gets to the point in a very direct yet poetic way. Points are made and expounded upon with a utilitarian style that somehow still is very descriptive. She effortlessly inserts statistics in natural locations that do no harm to the flow of the essay. Referencing To Kill a Mockingbird, she creates analogies and anecdotes that are familiar to most. Her transitions between paragraphs can be a little rough due to her utilitarian style, but she still manages to link items appropriately. Zajicek does an excellent job at telling stories in introductions. Her story of practicing sports helps to put one in the mindset of an exhausted athlete. She composes excellently and connects well with me in her starting story by expressing the absolute dread of tough conditioning after a grueling practice. Linking and segwaying excellently, she connects her captivating story to a more formal introduction of her essay’s topic and thesis statement. Thompson uses vocabulary terms and advanced language in general. Her adjectives are descriptive and easily convey meaning. Her analysis goes in depth as she even talks about the minor chords used in Jaws to convey a sense of uneasiness. She clearly chose a topic that she was passionate and knowledgeable about. All of the essays that I have viewed at my table have shown a knowledge and passion about the topic at hand. The writing of others has taught me many minor things that I can do to improve my writing.
1 Clark
Throughout the reading of my table mates Causal essays, I have found a variety of differences throughout each one. They all bring so many positive qualities to their essay. Starting, Bayleigh Holter does a tremendously nice job of describing using descriptive adjectives. This helps make her essay sound more intelligent and add a variety of word choice in. She also does a superb job at adding in her works cited into the essay and making it easy to find in the works cited page, while also being found in the essay. I also really enjoy in her essay when she talks about the story of Rebecca which helps give an example of what it is like for the people living like this so you can connect with them by understanding the feelings and daily issues that occur in their life. Alex Waltner starts off his essay strong by having a descriptive and intriguing title of what the essay will be about. Not only in the title though, he grabs your attention in the first sentence by using intelligent word choice and having an appealing starter sentence. He also makes sure to have the beginning sentence of each paragraph explain what that paragraph will talk about. It helps to organize the essay better and not make it appear confusing to the reader. Layne Symington has a very appealing topic. Many of the students in this class connect with his chosen topic of his. He does a very nice job of including a block quote in and the layout of it is done very well. He also does a tremendous job at transitioning to the next topic and making it all flow together well. Not only that, but his word choice is scholar like and makes him sound highly intelligent. I am glad I took the time to read my peers essays because it has helped me figure out what I need to work on more and what I can learn from reading their essays.
6Holter
As I am reading my fellow table mates, I am very surprised and interested in all of their essays. All three of them have very different topics to write about but they are all well written and full of detail. The first essay I read was Clark’s essay about why our world today is obese. First of all, I think the topic she decided to write about is a very well-chosen topic because obesity is a highly increasing problem that is occurring today, especially in younger children. I was highly impressed with Clark’s descriptive word choice. Throughout her essay she used descriptive words to paint an image into your mind. Words like: ice-cold, gruesome, oversized, and delectable make her essay more vivid and interesting to the reader. The next essay I read was Symington’s essay about why we go to college. I really enjoy this essay topic because as a senior I have always wondered why do we go to college? What are the benefits of it? As I read through his essay the first sentence grabbed my attention right away. He talks about childhood coloring then applying for a “real job” in the world which is relatable to most people. Symington did a fabulous job with paragraph transitions. His paragraph transitions were not choppy or confusing; they had a nice flow to them. Having a nice flow to his essay makes reading it a ton easier. The final essay I read was Waltner’s essay about how competitive we are in society. In addition to having a creative title that really catches your eye, he also has a very innovative first sentence comparing animals and humans. After reading a few sentences from each paragraph, I was really impressed by Waltner’s word choice and sentence structure. He used a variety of sentence structures from independent sentences to dependent sentences. His word choice throughout his essay is splendid. He did not just use words like most or very, but used words like majority or excessively to make his essay more interesting and entertaining to the reader. All three of their essays impressed me and I hope my essay is as well-written as theirs.
6 Eigenberg
Composing essays to include attributes that severely heighten the readability of the topic is a strenuous process. The hardest attribute for me to include in my composition is finding different sentence starters other than the subject. Etrheim does a great job of including different sentence starters. All throughout her entire introductory paragraph, “the” starts a sentence only once. She also uses descriptive and strong verbs to accentuate her essay as a whole. Forster may use “the” to begin sentences, but she does so using hypothetical questions in succession. This use of questions and using the same sentence starter keeps the reader intrigued and wanting to continue and finish the work of art. Forster also avoids using the weak adverb “very” by including words such as “stunningly”. Kluin is exceptional fluent at transitioning from one paragraph to another. She brings up the new paragraph by including a snippet of the previous paragraph to improve readability and increase interest. Kluin is also very good at avoiding the use of “very”, unlike I am. She includes numerous other colorful adverbs to avoid the usage of the word “very”. Words like “strongly”, “completely”, and “relatively” are substituted in for “very”. McGee is just as fluent as the rest of my tablemates at these very difficult attributes. McGee is especially gifted at avoiding expletives. A Command+F search of her essay found the use of one expletive used. To be able to write a five page essay is superb, let alone only using one expletive to begin a sentence. My tablemates are extremely intelligent students, and I could write compliments on their writing for the whole period if I had to. The use of so many attributes is extraordinarily difficult, and I aspire to include them in all of my essays from here on out.
6 Beckman
Sherron’s essay is not in the shared folder, but if the essay was like all of her other ones, I am sure it is impeccable and well written. I love the beginning of Johnke’s essay. He starts out his essay about pollution with a seemingly tragic, yet highly likely, story about how a plastic bag ends up in the water system, and how the accumulation of similar bags leads to the increase in pollution. His first sentence was short, but he had various lengths throughout that paragraph. Throughout the essay, he had great paragraph transitions such as how pollution affects us and what it is. He never started a sentence with “there is” or “it is”. He did not use “very,” but instead, used words like “quite”. I absolutely loved how he tied it back in the end, with the same story about the plastic bag.
Runia’s essay was spectacular as well. She does a tremendous job with her transitions between paragraphs. She always ties back the last sentence in every paragraph to her thesis statement, which makes an impact. She also does a fabulous job with not using weak expletives, but instead, she has great word choice and really emphasizes her points. She does extremely well with tying her words and the quoted words together to make the sentence (and paragraph as a whole) flow nicely and sound amazing. She does an awesome job at varying her sentence structure, too. I love how she tied in an example from Harry Potter, which is one of the most well known series of our generation. This is a great way to keep the audience of our age, captivated. She does a good job with using words other than “very”, and with using power verbs instead of linking verbs as well. Overall, Johnke’s and Runia’s essays were well written.
1 Vielmette
Top, in her essay, uses great explanations in her paragraphs going to the great lengths of describing how we first started to domesticate dogs and going back 9,000 years ago and how they were much more useful than what they are today. Also describing their journey from China to modern day America. For Konz's essay is great in that it explains all the possible reasons as to why one person would be religious and the other would not as well as siting a lot of sources to go along with it. I especially liked her paragraph transitions as they were all different in introducing the new idea and alluding to them except for the 5th paragraph which seems like it could be a bit stronger with introducing the last topic or idea. Galbavy's essay is interesting to me in that I ask myself the same question every time a game comes on for my parents to watch. He introduces the reasons as to why the phenomena is still occurring and how we have made improvements to even end it like a TV. His use of an active voice are great too with even the insert of someone saying a prayer at the end of a game for hopes of a miracle to take place and let their team win and claim victory. All of the essay's at my table have been well written with some errors here and there that pull you away from what they are trying to accomplish but once they get them fixed the essays will be great and intriguing.
Corcoran 6
Jax Steffel is one my three table mates and he constantly seeks out challenging topics to write about. It is admirable for a majority of his topics include a fair amount of thinking involved. Jax always uses wonderful words and spelling that flows with absolute clarity to substance. He acknowledges all his points and arguments with absolute explanation in a very smooth pace, nothing is rushed and the informations feels naturally given in his work. He cites admirable people with renown names, which adds a layer of intellect and genuine grasp of the topic at large. Jax also treats the audience as people who have the brain capacity to comprehend everything he is talking about which I have greatly appreciate as a reader .Another one of my table mates is Jessica Berg, though her causal essay is not directly in the folder at this time I have certainly had the chance to admire her past work. She is exceptionally adept at presenting her essays in a understandable yet sophisticated manor. Exuberant words and charming quality adds heart to her writing, making it distinctive. An impressively smart person. My final table mate is Aly, an incredibly calm and thorough individual which is shown in her writing. Her research is meticulous on a fairly touchy subject. She is handling it with care and professional seriousness, Aly is equipped with the sensibility and finesse to write about animal abuse in a very strategic and informative style. Using many statistics and references she shows that she indeed knows what she is writing about and cares for it as well. Sometimes we have a rough time getting started, though once we do, I surely think we all time and time again produce great work that we dedicated a great deal of time to carefully craft.
3 Coyle
Upon reading Barton’s essay about why we do not go to bed when we are tired, I have found his essay to be riveting and very captivating as I am learning more about why we do not go to sleep. The way he transitioned into every paragraph was flawless and he phrased things in a way that made me think more about what it was he was saying instead of being bland and simply stating what it was when he was saying it. He made the essay extremely easy to read, yet was intellectual in the way that it was composed. I was intrigued by the usage of different ways of starting an essay that I have not yet thought of doing myself. I am empowered by the completion of his essay to finish my own in a good time frame and to make it half as good as he has done on his essay. As I read Woessner’s essay on why music genres change over the generations, I learned that most people would rather listen to what it is they have been told is “inappropriate” by their parents as an act of pseudo-rebellion to their parents. The way that he phrased his essay was superb as he did not simply tell straight facts, but told a story with them. His sentence structures were delightful to my eyes when I saw that the subject did not always follow where it normally would have. There were a few alliterations in there that made my brain happy to read (I do really love alliterations), and made the overall essay a little bit easier. The research was well done and because he had put the pie charts in his essay, I had a better time understanding what it was that he was saying in his essay. He has done a fantastic job so far and I am excited to read what it is that he will talk about next.
7 Scholten
My table mates all have specific attributes that they show excellence in and they have been extremely helpful to me while constructing my essay. After reading through my table mates essays, their essays are beginning to look magnificent. My table mates are Blue, Woodward, and Livingston. First I read through Blue’s essay. Blue has a extremely good topic and it is very interesting to read. One thing Blue is very good at is varying his sentence length and varying his sentence structure. Blue does a nice job of not always using simple sentences but varying between compound, complex, and compound-complex. His sentences are always long and make sense. They are never run on sentences and always seem to be perfect sentences. This helps me and others understand what he is writing and it is fun to read Blues essays. Another thing Blue does really well is being descriptive in his writing. He uses a ton of descriptive adjectives to help the reader paint a picture of what is happening in his essay. He also uses powerful verbs as well to make his writing strong. I also read through was Woodward’s essay. The topic she is writing about is a very interesting one. One thing Woodward does very well is varying her sentence starters. She never begins a sentence with the same word two times in a row. This makes it less boring to read and more enjoyable for the reader. Another thing I like about Woodward’s essay is her sources. Backing up your essay with sources is crucial and Woodward did a really nice job of doing this. Her sources fit perfectly in her essay especially the quote she got from the professor at Nebraska Wesleyan. The last essay I read was Livingston’s essay. She does a really nice job with paragraph transitions. Her essay flows from paragraph to paragraph extremely well and is very easy to read. Another thing she does well is avoiding weak expletives and using strong and powerful verbs and subjects. Reading through my table mates essays was extremely helpful for my own essay and I will try to use some of the skills of my table mates in my essay.
Symington 6
For my groups essays, I observed many traits that made their particular essay topics even more interesting. For example, in Holter’s essay, although quite thought provoking, is a well written essay about why people choose to give up on life and commit suicide. In her essay, she describes suicide as being a “permanent fix to a temporary problem”. This, I believe is very true and quite an interesting perspective. After reading just a short excerpt from her essay, I became quickly interested and wished to know more. In Holter’s essay, she analyzed the causes of suicide in which included examples that I had never thought about before including: depression and bullying. Throughout reading her response, I believed she did very well on explaining possible reasons and her paragraph transitions were fairly well written while she transitioned from one cause to another. One thing that I will now do in my essay, similar to what Holter did, is I wish to have a primary source in my essay. Next, Waltner’s essay, he wrote about how since the earliest civilizations, people and other species have been at constant battle with each other to see which one is the best and ultimately the underlying cause of this is competitiveness. In his essay, Waltner includes the basic history of why humans are competitive and, in my opinion, it was very helpful which enabled me to better understand his topic. While reading Waltner’s essay, I was very impressed about how he tied his information together to explain why humans are so competitive. In Clark’s essay, she analyzed one of the biggest challenges in America today; that topic being obesity. Throughout the entirety of her essay, she used a variety of good sentence starters that kept me interested in her topic which is something that I wish to do in my own essay. Similar to Holter’s essay, she wrote about many causes relating to obesity that I had not quite considered before. Some of which included things like work schedules and other forms of stress. Overall, I found ways in which I can improve my own essay by looking at my fellow peer's writings.
6 Etrheim
I really like how Eigenberg started off his essay. He caught my attention by talking about Adam, Eve, and the serpent who deceived Eve into eating the apple. It shows you what he will be talking about the rest of his essay: lying. But it is lying on surveys. Also, Eigenberg does a really good job with transitioning from paragraph to paragraph by keeping it interesting. He asked good questions as to why people do lie on surveys. It made people think and had to give an honest answer. I think McGee chose a really good topic to write about. I think that because here at Brandon Valley High School there is, no doubt about it, cliques. McGee had a good answer from a survey which was that people want a source of identity. I find that extremely true. As well as Eigenberg she did a great job with transitioning from paragraph to paragraph. Forster started off her intro with good questions, and I enjoyed that. It makes you think about it to yourself and wonder what she is going to talk about it in her essay and explain herself to as why she asked those exact questions. In her essay she had good statistics that related to her essay and she put them in a good spot so they did not sound awkward or confusing. Kluin also chose a good topic: music. Everyone likes music. In her survey she asked great questions so she could get even better answers to them. Kluin does a good job of using different words and she does not keep repeating the same word over and over again. Overall, I think Eigenberg, Forster, McGee, and Kluin all did an amazing job at writing their causal essays. I recommend reading any one of their essays because I believe if you read others’ essays it can help you with your own writing skills.
As we finish writing our Causal essays, I like to grab inspiration from my table mates when I am stuck. I looked at the essays of House, Sorenson, and Waldera. I started by looking at House’s essay and his was very intriguing. He questioned why teenagers fight with their parents which is relatable to everyone and appeals to the masses. House was able to use many power verbs in his paper such as “butting heads” which is much stronger than “arguing”. He also did not have a lot of weak expletives, so the essay had a more interesting sentence structure than if he did. Sorenson’s essay covered introverts and extroverts and what causes one person to be more like the other. Sorenson had great transition sentences that helped keep the flow in her essay. She tied the preceding paragraph’s points into her next paragraph very well and concisely. Also, she used her research exceptionally well and kept it interesting, even though it can be hard to do so. Sorenson was able to keep her sources relevant to what she was saying. I appreciate how she showed that her sources were credible by stating where they work, such as Professors Aaron Lukaszewski and James Roney from the University of California. Her essay was much more informational than House’s but they both were very well written. Waldera tackled the very grim topic of cancer. His tone and point of view were very analytical and solemn which is needed for such a heavy topic. He refrained from using “they” and “this” which kept it from becoming dull. I especially liked his introduction paragraph; Waldera used gripping facts about cancer to capture the reader’s attention. All of my table mates have great essays and use exceptional writing techniques that I hope to incorporate into my own essay.
3 House
Becky has an captivating word like ostrich or ostracized in her first sentence to attract the readers in. Becky has a good intro-she took a note out of my last essay and used a train of thought dialogue. I think it is a great way to start some essays for this class if it is appropriate; we are all teens and it is something we can relate too. She also does a good job in taking a serious-styled essay due to the citations and such and makes it humorous. Dodge does a great job of sounding formal. His topic is about cancer; this needs a formal tone to it and cannot be jokingly because cancer affects more people than it does not. His sentence transitions are wonderful, skimming his essay he various how he starts each sentence and I rarely saw the common overused subject-verb sentence. Doing so it makes his essay easier to read and it flows smooth making a hard topic easy to digest. He also has pie graph added in his essay. I think that is good because it helps allows all these facts and information to become congealed into a big picture. Anna is very organized her thoughts flow well and it makes sense in how her essay is set up. She too has a good voice in the essay. It sounds very mature and scholarly. It makes her seem older than her 17 or 18 years of life. She does a good job of weaving the vocab words and final exam requirements in her paper. You can tell that they were not just thrown in there to meet the requirements same with her in text citations. She also does a good job getting a lot said in the fewest words possible. There is not much fillers in her essays; it is all quality facts and statements.
Ellis 1
In this causal essay, all my table mates selected interesting and exciting topics. Klamm’s topic, why animals become cannibalistic, is a great eye catcher to the average civilian. Why some things go viral, Presler’s topic, is a great way to relate to modern day society and the need for entertainment with worldwide “inside jokes”. Meyer’s causal topic can be related to my own because it is about the fanatic devotion to sports which is like people’s constant devotion to television. Reese’s is about the need for people to have possessions. That causal essay has many resources imbedded into it, giving off the idea that he put a lot of effort and thought into this topic. Meyer’s essay has a great eye catching title, “The Misery and Agony of Sports: Why Fans Turn Hostile,” that can be used to perceive the negative impact that sports fanatics can create. On Presler’s essay, she has great use of a pie chart into her essay from a survey she conducted. In Klamm’s essay, I loved how she used many different species of animals to show different examples of why animals may resort to cannibalism. Presler’s essay also a great way to relate directly to the reader of the essay, seeing that many people enjoy being up to date on the world’s inside jokes. Meyer’s first body paragraph starting sentence is an amazing way for people to figure out the timing of, “the last time the Chicago Cubs have won the notorious World Series: Neither World War I nor World War II had yet been fought; sliced bread, television, and radio did not exist at the time; the Titanic was built, sank, and rediscovered,” It is a great way to start an essay body because it makes you wonder how anyone could stay a fan of a team so lacking in World Series wins. These things where small bits of their causal essays that stood out to me as excellent.
1 Talcott
I really enjoyed Ms. Harvison’s essay because of the depth of knowledge one can perceive when reading this piece of work. She has a lot of hard research and facts that I especially admire because they flow effortlessly throughout the entirety of the essay. I also liked the verbs and adverbs Ms. Harvison utilized. They always had a nice variation. I especially liked the use of the word “dabble” in the second paragraph. I am not quite sure why but that word stuck out to me. She also employed the use of many adverbs other than “very” and varied her sentence structure and length. My favorite paragraph of hers was her introduction. The introduction made myself, and I am sure other readers, become very initially interested in reading the rest of the essay. Though Mr. Willard’s and Ms. Harvison’s essay referred to the same topic I enjoyed the differences between them. I found Mr. Willard’s essay compelling, as I always find his essays, because of his amazing verbiage. I hope to at some point be able to emulate his ability to use large words and make them understandable and useful in an essay. I also enjoyed both his and Ms. Beck’s use of rhetorical questioning in the introductions of both their essay. This tactic hooked me into reading the entirety of their essays. Ms. Beck used a multitude of statistics, pictures, graphs, and many sources throughout her essay. These factors contributed to her essay looking very scholarly. I appreciate Ms. Beck’s use of transitions, as it is something I am not overly proficient at personally. All my table mates are making outstanding progress on their essays. Ms. Harvison, Mr. Willard, and Ms. Beck each have very different writing styles. It is always a great learning experience to read their essays and see what techniques they employ that I should also include in my essays.
3 Braley
One thing I do enjoy about how our workspace is set up is the fact that at anytime I can see what my peers are doing. Whenever I feel stuck or need to see how to set something up I can easily check in on my friend and learn how they set up this sentence or how they used a stronger word here instead of this easier to use but a far weaker word. Kueter A. as always knows what she is talking about and covers her topic as fully as possible, she does everything in her power to make sure that her audience has a very clear understanding of what her points are and leave knowing they have indeed learned something from her. Bowman really catches my attention with his essay as he starts off, not by stating a bunch of facts at his reader that they may or may not be familiar with, instead he sets up a situation that almost everyone understands for either they themselves have gone through something similar or at least can comprehend the feelings one would have in that situation. It allows the reader to connect to what they are reading and are then far more likely to keep reading. Casey does something similar but in a different aspect, she too connects with her reader but she does this by giving her essay a voice. As I was reading it I could always hear how she would read it as it very clear this is her writing. More than once Smit has made the comment that it takes him a lot of time to write his essay and he can spend hours writing what end up being only a few paragraphs, but from the perspective of a reader, I feel it is worth it. When you read his essay it is easy to see that he spent to put a lot of effort into it, made sure it flows the way he wants and that he is covering everything as fully as he would like to, this enhances the experience felt by the reader as they know it isn't something that just got thrown together the night before.
3 Olthoff
As the year moves along and we transition into the second quarter, it is already apparent that everyone in Composition is becoming a stronger writer. Nathan Bachman’s essay introduction is extremely compelling. It instantly lures the reader in and makes them fall into the trap, not being able to put down what they are reading. He uses his extensive vocabulary perfectly to make himself sound extremely scholarly and further prove his intelligence and credibility. He uses the precise proportion of upper level vocabulary words paired with words that everybody knows to make his essay extremely relatable. There is no doubt that his essay about the causal explanation of people owning pets will be seen as one of his best works this year. Jayde Schroder expertly explains what Snapchat is by using dialogue between two imaginary people in her introduction paragraph. In doing so, she helps the readers who are unsure about what it is better understand and be able to know what she is talking about in her essay. This technique is something I hope to mirror in future essays. Charlie Wheeler set the mood perfectly in her introductory paragraph. She started off her essay with a single word sentence, and it is quite possibly the most powerful sentence in her entire causal essay. Wheeler chose the very delicate subject of Child Abuse, and she nailed it. The use of a survey to show that even in the small town of Brandon, South Dakota, where you never hear of anything dealing with child abuse, it still exists around here. Shown through her survey, I discovered the shocking statistic that seventeen percent of people surveyed had experienced some sort of abuse. Also, as any good writer and person would, she places the blame on the despicable abuser, and never on the victim.
3 Hoffman
The classmates I have are Roegiers, Roby, Moelter, and KueterM. Roegiers, I believe, has an absolutely brilliant idea for this essay, which is the idea of going viral. I have always been fascinated by this idea of having something blow up over the internet, and I am excited to see someone has indulged their time into understanding it. The more I read it, the more incredibly humorous I found it, because he mentioned water-bottle flipping. I thought the idea of that would die, but rather he had included even a pie chart about who has flipped a water-bottle before, showing he was taking this not only seriously, but also in a creative and jocular way. Roby has an incredibly powerful way of starting the essay, she said the simple phrase, “Laughter is ubiquitous.” to start it all off. A 3-worded phrase is simple to remember, and hard to come up with. She also has some very interesting facts I had never thought of, bringing up how not all comedy is the same, and how nothing is universally funny. Incredible idea, wonderful execution. Moelter had a wondrous topic as well, dreams. She started it with interrupting modifier, which was an interesting way to begin, it crafted my interest. Aside from the topic, she manages to use very educated words and seems to have done her research, because it is all coherent and wonderful. KueterM has such a wonderful way of starting her essay, it begins with a “There once was a boy…” story that will segue into her idea: phobias. The story itself, which is about fearing riding elevators, is so incredibly written; you can almost feel the pain or fear the boy is experiencing. I also found it humorous that she knocked out 5 final exam terms in the first paragraph; I have finished 5 as well, though in 4 pages. Regardless of the fact that she used all of the exam terms in the first paragraph, it still flowed so well that I hardly noticed it. In closing, the four classmates I have at my table are brilliant thinkers, and I hope to make an essay as good as they have.
7 Livingston E
My fellow table mates have various aspects of their essays that make reading their essays more enjoyable. One of the first things that I noticed while reading Blue’s essay was in the first sentence. Instead of using the word “happy” which is commonly used as an adjective, he used the word jovial. I think that it makes the first sentence in his essay stick out to the reader because he used vocabulary that we don’t use in our daily lives. I also liked that he introduced his survey and what the survey was about and related it back to what his introduction paragraph was about. He made the transition from his opinion to his research very smooth. I also enjoyed some of the imagery that he put within his essay when talking about tanning in the summertime and watching it snow in the winter. When I was reading Scholten’s essay, his title is what caught my attention right away. I think that it is a catchy title and it makes me want to read into the essay. I also enjoyed how he used different internet sensations that everyone seen in the past few years to point out the fact that we are always checking social media and following the pictures or videos that go viral. One of the best things that he used in his essay was that he also showed the negative aspects of using our phones. He pointed out that we are so attached to them now that we text and drive, and it has become a more popular thing to do, especially for our generation. I think that when he points out the negative side of using our phones it really makes a point that we can’t even put them down while we are driving. The main point that caught my attention in Woodward's essay was that everyone can relate to it. We’ve all been there, having the debate about if you and a group of friends should watch a chick flick or an action movie. I think that she describes the situation perfectly. I also noticed that she transitions very well from paragraph to paragraph. She relates the start of one of the paragraphs to the end of the preceding one, which makes the essay flow better. I hope to use some of their techniques to make my essay more fluent like theirs.
3 DeCurtins
Upon reading some of my fellow peers Causal Essay assignments, I noticed a Mr. Smit’s writing on hand gestures, their importance, and their uses in human communication. Firstly, I would like to commend him for choosing a topic of discussion that is both unique and likely difficult to describe, considering some of the effects of hand signalling must be translated into words. He uses wit and humor in his opening paragraph well and really snags the reader’s attention with his description of early human communications and the development of speech and language. Smit also does an excellent job of describing various studies and surveys he cites in his work. Using an advanced vocabulary, Mr. Smit captivates our attention and trust with an aura of credibility akin to that of the very researchers and scientists he quotes. Somehow his writing seems to “drive itself” so to speak, much like some of the most interesting narratives read in a literature class. I truly enjoyed reading what Mr. Smit wrote and I look forward to what he has to offer in future essays.
Ms. Poole did an excellent job of using unconventional subjects, subject phrases, and gerunds to begin some of her sentences and add variety to them. One of my favorite instances of this was the use of “Going online” as I have not yet seen it used. Ms. Myers expertly avoiding using too many expletives like “there are,” there is,” or “this is.” Mr. Buteyn, much like Myers with her expletives, uses interesting adverbs, and only ever uses the very week adverb “very” once in his essay. As an example, he uses more powerful adverbs like “Typically” and “Ultimately.” And last but certainly not least, Ms. Mendoza. Mendoza starts her essay off with a bang. Well, a grammar bang so to speak. The first word (Alcohol) is immediately followed by a colon, which is used to drive home her point: that people will drink, even if it is damaging to them. This is one of the most interesting ways I have yet seen used to begin an essay, and I may use this strategy someday in a sentence.
6 Sherron
My table mates have blessed me with the ability of finding so many things to compliment in their essays. Their writing styles, although vastly different, have motivated and inspired me to diversify in my own composition.
Johnke has a knack for figurative language, and he broadcasts this in his second line. Already he has varied his sentence structure, starting with a prepositional phrase and keeping his parallelism when describing the movement of a plastic bag. As he is writing about water pollution, he traces the creation and use of a bag, almost like Forrest Gump with the white feather. Johnke’s gift for vivid imagery and description also aids him in meeting the page requirement along with adding depth and emphasis into his main points.
Runia has done her research and it is evidenced by her writing. Full of sources, she skillfully interweaves the various specialists’ opinions together, creating an overall opinion of why spiders are feared. She also does a great job varying her sentence structure and avoiding weak expletives. Runia continually references her intro or thesis statement as a way to reemphasize the point of her causal essay and bring back the main focus of a story or quote. Her strongest paragraph thus far is her media paragraph in which she cites multiple movie scenes, cuts from books, specific experiences, and different cultures.
Beckman continues to impress me with her astounding perspectives on why history repeats itself. I have to admit, this was something I just accepted inherently. Her in-depth analyzation of why this phenomenon has both sparked my interest and drawn me deeper into the causes of her essay. I like her riveting examples from history and how she ties them into how history repeats itself. With many to choose from, she chooses notorious moments of history that many people remember or have heard of. I also like the way she is varying her sentence structure from her previous essays; she is working in multiple commas, colons, and semicolons, more than ever attempted.
7 Dybdahl
Throughout the year, I have been given the chance to read my fellow tablemates essays. I learn from them by simply reading their essays. The first essay that I read was Mork’s. She is writing about why people try new things. I appreciated the way she started out her essay with a statistic. It instantly grabbed my attention, and made me want to continue reading her essay. I admire the topic she chose. I can easily pick up her personality through her writing. Mork included questions in her essay, and I think that it really added to her topic. It made me think more into her topic and kept my attention throughout her essay. By reading her essay, I noticed that the transitions from paragraph to paragraph were very smooth. Mork used great vocabulary throughout her essay, making it a great essay to read. The next essay I read was Grode’s. He is writing about why people strive to be better than others. He included things in his essay that really helped get his topic across. His intro paragraph is full of things that grabbed my attention. He used an immense amount of great vocabulary words which made his essay interesting to read. Grode had great paragraph transitions throughout his essay, making it flow easily. I noticed that Grode structured his sentences differently each time, resulting in an well written essay. The third essay I read was written by Singh. He is writing about the cause of America’s obesity. He also started out his essay with a statistic, which I liked. He had a well written intro that was full of facts, which made me understand what his essay was essentially about. The facts also fully supported the topic. His transitions into paragraph were great, making his essay easy to read. Each of my tablemates seem to know a lot about the topic they are writing about, which makes reading it a lot more enjoyable.
Konz 1
Looking at the essays of my peers can be a very helpful tool to use in order to improve my own essays. They demonstrate the use of specific literary tools that I may not be accustomed to using which helps give me ideas to improve my own essay. Top successfully uses very differing sentence structures which makes her essay very interesting because it is not always the same subject and verb combination. I also like how she added the map of where dogs originated to help the reader understand. If it was possible, I would add more visuals if I were her so that the one didn’t seem so out of the ordinary. In Galbavy’s essay, I love the introductory sentence. It really captures the reader's attention by explaining in descriptive and exciting detail. One thing I would suggest is changing the sentence structure because the first four sentences all start with The (noun) which could be more effective if they were varying or at least spread out from one another. In contrast, there are also some good examples of varying sentences like in the third paragraph. It starts with a short sentence “Seconds are ticking down” which is very effective because it is surrounded by longer, more complex sentences. This strategy make the sentence interesting and exciting for the reader. Lastly, in Vielmette’s Causal Essay, I think it is really creative that he includes comments about essays in his essay, I find it very funny. Also, I think the topic itself is very interesting which helps to make it an exciting essay even before you consider the literary tools and devices he uses to present his topic. Using real life examples of how people commonly embarrasses themselves makes this essay very relatable to every reader because we have all been through embarrassing situations.
7 Scherb
I personally learn a lot from the experiences of others, or just being able to watch what others say or do. In this particular case, looking at and studying the writing of other people is an awesome way to learn how to improve my own writing and to be educated on other subjects that I normally would not have known about or felt an interest to learn through. Fortunately, my table mates all take a unique taste to writing, so I have some variety in what I can learn from.
Carson’s writing is always very descriptive and detailed. Her essays excel in the area of avoiding weak expletives; she is always coming up with a new way to intro a sentence, which keeps the reader’s attention and focus. Carson also does a great job of varying her sentence’s length. She will describe something with a long and detailed sentence only to follow with a shorter, or more medium length sentence to modify the longer ones, or vice versa.
Christie is easily one of the best at using both power verbs instead of the weak linking verbs and a very wide range of vocabulary words to spice up his sentences with some variety. For example: Christie used the word proliferated in place of a much more boring word such as spread, or even moved. His use of more powerful verbs inspire me to attempt to match his variety which easily keeps my interest.
And lastly, but most certainly not least: Haase. Haase’s topics are always filled with a passion of writing that you can only find in those essays where you know the writer truly cares about. Haase is always able to weave a beautiful and flowing composition with her transitions. If everything that she wrote was left without indents or spaces, you would still be able to tell where her topic transitions into the next theme. They are both seamless and effective, two things which I hope to employ in my own writing.
1 Powell
We all think different, act different, and look different. When you look at other authors writing, it is almost as if you are given a portal into their thoughts. By learning from each other (especially in the case of composing), you can truly evolve as a person. My table-mates, Jeanson and Hoffman, have given me new insight into manipulating English into a beautiful piece of art.
While examining Jeanson’s work, I am particularly struck by her use of connotation to draw forth gut emotions that perfectly match her subject. In her first paragraph alone her use of “plague” and “insatiable” makes chills run up my spine while discussing the destruction caused by starfish on coral reefs. In addition, Jeanson strong vocabulary adds another layer to her work as she avoids banal words like “grow” replacing them with “thrive.” This excellent use of vocabulary in both variation and connotation makes Jeanson a tremendous writer.
Hoffman, on the other hand, uses a multitude of various sentence styles to delineate his topic. By varying the length and type of his sentences, Hoffman gives his writing flow, moving from subject to subject with ease. Whether using hypophoras or hyphens, his work is the epitome of beauty in the English language. Hoffman not only uses style to his advantage, but punctuation as well; using dashes, colons, and semicolons wherever possible, instead of defaulting to commas, adds life to his work and snaps the reader back to attention if their mind begins to dawdle. Overall, Hoffman’s use of style and punctuation is an excellent teacher for students struggling with one dimensional writing.
Through my table-mates work, I have learned much about composing. They have taught me the importance of style, punctuation, connotation, and vocabulary that can often be difficult to teach in lecture format. My writing has greatly improved this semester, and I hope further exposure to different ideas allows me to continue growing as a person and an author.
Galbavy 1
I sit amongst three smart students including Top, Knonz , and Vilamete. They all have what I believe to be strong essays and I have used their essays to incorporate some of their techniques into my very own. Looking at all three of their essays helped me a lot with how to label and input some of the final exam terms into my essay because I was kind of struggling on where to put some things. Reading through Konz’s essay I was able to find out how to use active voice correctly. I thought she did a good job with identifying hers. She also had smooth transitions from paragraph to paragraph and had more intelligent sounding words to make her essay appear as a reliable source which it could very well be. I also noticed that she did a good job with her works cited and her citing her sources within the site. I liked Brooke Top’s use of our vocab words because she successfully put the words into to add fluidity and they increased the intelligence of the essay itself. I also liked how she put a visual representation of a map on her essay. All together her transitions and terms were all very good. Her topic was pretty cool and thought she was successful in filling all of her pages with needed information and she did not just ramble on to fill the required amount of pages. She knew and researched her topic well and that is why I thought she did a great job on her essay. Reading Dalton’s I saw what appeared to me to be a strong essay with good use of vocab and good transitions. His essay had good fluidity. I loved how well he did with supporting the solid points needed in his essay and brought up great examples that fit well where he incorporated them in.
Clemenson 6
With the causal essays coming to an end tomorrow, it is nice to see how some of my table mates essays are coming along. Each of my four table mates, Koehn, Campbell, Lindemann, and Baldridge, possess spectacular writing abilities clearly seen in their essays. First, I love the way Campbell started her essay off by asking multiple rhetorical questions. It helps hook you onto the essay right from the beginning. Campbell also does an excellent job varying the beginning her sentences with words other than the subject, and when she does, she goes away from it in the following sentences. Campbell’s essay is quite interesting to me as I, like Campbell, want to be a pharmacist when I grow up and her essay is about why people avoid taking medicine. Lindemann has also picked a unique topic as her research is over why people get tattoos. She has done a great job on avoiding using the word it and using the term. Using the term proves to be quite helpful in making sure the reader understands what she is talking about. Lindemann still has a little more to finish up, but once she does I believe it will be an amazing essay. Koehn is writing about a question I am sure we have all asked: why are people so obsessed with technology. I believe she has done an excellent job finding good sources that provide great detail to her essay as I am sure information for this topic can be harder to come by. Koehn also does an excellent job of seldomly using the word “be.” as that is something I have trouble with in my essay, I hope to incorporate this into my own essay through reading hers. Overall, I think she has done an excellent job on her essay and will continue to improve going forward. Lastly, Baldridge is writing over why people live in South Dakota. Baldridge has done an excellent job of avoiding phrases using there is and it is and As a result she has much more captivating words used to engage the readers. She also has done an impressive job finding topics that can be expanded on, and once she expands on them, she will undoubtedly have an excellent essay for everyone to read. Overall each of my classmates have unique writing styles and as a result, prove why they should be in this class.
Broekemeier 7
While reading through my ‘table associate’s’ essays, I did in fact find an arsenal of literary tactics that delighted my own sensibilities as a reader. For example, the explosive positioning (i.e, the initial paragraph) of Huska’s facts and figures was a powerful way to illustrate the legitimacy of what she’s discussing, and verified her own knowledge on the fact. Normally I like flow between paragraphs, a natural lead-in between topics of discussion, but the way that Huska has gone in and introduced each new topic in an interesting-- captivating, even!-- manner was worth mention. The voice of her essay, very organic and natural, without the usual stiff-necked manner of most educated essays, has always been a pleasing part about delving into Huska’s essays. Speaking of tone, Jensen’s essay sounds almost --at least in my opinion-- like an infomercial, as though she’s trying to sell to me the concept of Thanksgiving deserving more of my attention, or, at the barest minimum, some degree of reverence equal to that of what we generally give to Christmas. I also enjoyed how although she seems generally in opposition of Christmas’ supposed monarchy in the holiday pyramid, she still gives valid reasons as to how it could have attained its status, and gives it its due course. In Munson’s essay, I never would have expected technology to be a reason for the downfall of the essay, and I think he did quite a job impressing upon me why that is a valid and justifiable reason for the ‘downfall of America’s past-time.’ Munsons word-choice alludes to a very educated vocabulary; you can tell this man has done his research, or has had valid world experience in his chosen topic and its causation.
6 Reinschmidt
My table consists of Jessica Berg, Connor Corcoran, and Jax Steffel. All very talented writers, I always look forward to hearing their ideas and reading their essays.
I could not find Berg’s essay, but based on her previous work, I am sure that this one in nothing short of spectacular.
Corcoran chose an extremely unique and interesting topic. I never would have considered writing about millennials, but after he explained it to me, I wanted to read it. The vocabulary that his essay contains is exceptional, and I often find myself looking up some words. He varied the way that he started his sentences, keeping the reader captivated by his words. I thought that he chose proper times to add in his research, and found his facts to be very intriguing. The topic is very relevant to kids our age, as we are apart of the Millennials. It hits points like why we are into technology and how times have changed since our elders have grown up. Corcoran has clearly put a lot of thought and effort into this essay, and I encourage all to read it.
Steffel’s topic is a controversial one that immediately sparks my interest. He starts with a block quote that is relevant to his topic and gets the reader hooked instantly. Along with Corcoran, Steffel is very knowledgeable when it comes to vocabulary, and which words to use when--he places them perfectly in his essay. He used a quote by Leonardo Da Vinci that says, “Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.” I think that goes hand in hand with his topic and speaks for one side of the argument. I think he makes it fairly obvious that he sees it both ways, a crucial piece to the success of his essay. He uses many questions that get the reader thinking and force them to finish the essay. Steffel is a very talented writer.
1 Mikkelsen
Looking at my tablemates’ essays has really helped me see what a great essay looks like. Everyone seems to have a different writing style and approach they take to writing the essay but it has been helpful to get ideas from Quanbeck, Hauge, Reindl, and Brandsrud. Quanbeck’s essay begins with a quote which can sometimes be boring, but his is really intriguing and makes you want to read more. Quanbeck also does a really great job of alternating back and forth between the points he is making in the essay about Challenge Day but then also backing them up with statistics and facts. It is very well organized and has a great flow while still making a lot of sense and is very well thought out, and at the same time it is very interesting to read. Hauge’s intro paragraph is great and I think it gives a good sense about what the essay will be about by describing a scenario of a little girl in dance. In addition, Hauge has very good sentence variety while at the same time the essay still flows very well. I also think her conclusion is very strong and ties the whole essay together as a whole. Reindl’s essay has a strong introductory paragraph. He also uses strong vocab words in good places that make the essay seem very credible while at the same time more interesting . I also really like how Reindl’s sentences really seem to connect to each other and I hopefully incorporated that into my own essay. I really like how Brandsrud’s essay start with an explanation of how bullying may work; he then goes on to ask questions and I think this is an interesting way to start an essay. I think Brandsrud also incorporated his survey really well into the essay because he went on to explain why instead of just listing facts and I think throughout the essay he elaborates on the points or statistics given instead of just listing them. I think it was great to read my tablemates’ essays because you can see that not only are they passionate about what they wrote about it, but it has also given me ideas for last minute touches to my essay.
Each person at my table wrote an essay that offered different ideas and had different things that were important and done well. The first tablemate is Ian Broekemeier. He wrote about the societal assumption that after high school everyone will continue to pursue a higher education. His word choice shows his knowledge and that he is an advanced student. One such word is plethora. Rather than using a plain word like many, this word spices things up a little more. Throughout the essay he has managed to avoid words like very, completely. Next up is Madi Jensen. She picked a topic that I had never really thought of, but completely acknowledge as true. She wrote about how Christmas is more glorified than Thanksgiving. While she seems to hate that thanksgiving is somewhat overlooked, she does still respect the other side of the argument. That side being that Christmas deserves its place as the number one holiday. She avoids overusing many words. The words she does use are not the usual trite and stale ones that people often use. She uses many quotes, and uses the well to get her point across. They are spaced throughout the essay so as to not overcrowd one part of the essay and each one serves a specific purpose. The last table partner is Huska. She clearly chose a topic she knew a lot about already, and thus her essay is very informative and knowledgable. Rather than having a few long paragraphs that ran on and rambled, she was able to neatly separate her information into multiple shorter paragraphs which made the essay easier to read and navigate. Overall, reading the essays has helped with ideas for my own essay, and strategizing how to plan out the essay and organize it.
7 Knutson
All the members in my pod had really good essays with interesting topics that I would not have thought of myself. They all have things that I can learn from and apply to the essay I am writing. Hansen had a very interesting essay going deep into the question of why people today smoke when people know all the harms cigarettes cause. He did a really good job of varying how he begun his sentences so that it did not get repetitive. He had excellent word choice making his essay more interesting to read. There is a lot I can learn from Hansen’s essay that I can put into my own writing. Riley had a really good essay that taught me a lot about insomnia. She does a good job transitioning from one paragraph to another so that it all flows well together. She did a good job staying away from words like very and chose better descriptive words. Riley also has a great variety in her sentence length so that it does not get repetitive and become boring. Van Kalsbeek had a very well structured essay and it really did a good job of examining obesity. She had really good vocabulary that improved her sentences. She had a good variety of sentence lengths to prevent boring the reader. She did a good job relating obesity to things we are familiar with such as “My 600 Pound Life.” All in all I think she had a lot of good aspects to her essay and I learned a lot from it. Lastly Livingston researched why homeless people stay homeless and this is a really interesting topic and he had a really good essay. He varied his sentence length and made sure to vary how he started his sentences so that he was not always beginning with the sentence with the subject.
7 Singh
I have read multiple of my tablemates essays and they have continued to improve throughout the year. All of my table mates had very interesting topics for the causal essay and they were very well written. Dybdahl wrote a very interesting essay about reasons for criminal behavior. She started her essay with an interesting fact. She caught my attention right away with the statistic. I thought the information from her survey served good purpose in her essay. Her vocabulary usage, I thought, was very appropriate and did a good job of making her essay unique. Grode wrote his essay about why we as humans have a need for success. I think this is a very good topic especially with most of us planning our futures this year. I really enjoyed his opening paragraph about the lion and wall street. He had very good transitions between his paragraphs. He also had some very interesting points in essay and I learned a lot. He also was able to incorporate different sentence structure which also made it easy to stay invested in his essay. He had some very interesting information that did great job of making his essay very interesting. Mork’s essay was about why humans try new things. I thought this was a very unique topic. She started her essay with a statistic and a question. This was a good way of grabbing the reader's attention and making them interested in her essay. I liked her information and I thought it was an overall very interesting article with some awesome information that I would have never thought of about such a topic. She had some great vocabulary that kept her topic interesting and unique. She also did a good job of including her citations in such a manner that they flowed nicely within her essay and didn’t distract from the essay.
3 Casey
My table group is comprised of A. Kueter, Bowman, Braley, and Smit. They are all extremely well written and very intelligent people over all and reading their essays has given me many ideas and motivation to complete my own.
Smit is always very good about getting essays done a week or a week and a half in advance and I am extremely envious of the motivation that he has to be able to get that done. The quick pace of his work does not affect the quality as you may think. He has excellent use of vocabulary terms and his paragraphs flow with the citation woven into them.
Braley’s way of using the experiments as a way of explaining her subject made it entirely fascinating and really grabbed my attention. She sounds extremely professional while also combining emotions into it to make you invested in the experiments, therefore, invested in the essay.
Bowman I would have to say did a great job of explaining his subject in depth and really allowing the reader to get a taste of what it is to have anxiety. He used a lot of different methods in making sure his audience understood what, why, and how. Also, he has a good closing sentence.
Kueter went above and beyond on her essay while expressing thoughts of her own and information she found in experiments. The use of pictures really enhanced her essay. You can tell she chose a topic that truly interested her because of the length and depth which her essay has. All the reasons why were thoroughly covered and explained very well.
Over all, my table partners’ essays are extremely well written and are constantly motivating me to better my writing skills and spend a little extra time trying to make it better. They have all done and continue doing an exceptional job on our assignments.
3 Woessner
During the composition of my causal essay, scrutinizing my tablemates essays has shown to improve my own writing. Reading my peers essay provides me with different ideas and tactics essential to the progression of my writing skills. First, I read Coyle’s essay. Coyle’s essay is about bullying, which is an extremely sensitive and unique topic. Coyle’s essay is written in such a way that it entraps the reader, inviting them to continue reading. Coyle’s introduction paragraph is the aspect of her essay that enticed me the most. The way she uses good transition words and magnificent descriptive words really makes me strive to write better. Her transitions between paragraphs were also superb and made the essay flow very well. I thought her use of sources and information was exceptional, and something I should look to improve in my essay. The next essay I read was Barton’s. Barton’s essay was also an incredibly written piece of work. Barton also had an extremely well composed introduction paragraph. Another strong point is Barton’s conclusion. I thought it was impressive how his introduction and conclusion were very similar in thought and meaning, but was not written with the same verbiage and transition words. Barton’s also did a great job with transitioning to and from paragraphs. This is something I can take into my own writing to become a better writer. I can tell that both of my tablemates put forth maximum effort in researching and writing about their topic. Their essays were not bland and dragging, but interesting and intriguing. Their essays are very easy to read, in that they are interesting enough that one does not get bored while reading and want to stop. When putting the finishing touches on my own essay, I will make sure to take into consider the favorable aspects my peers chose to include in their composition.
3 Roegiers
My four table mates are Moelter, Roby, Kueter M, and Hoffman. Starting off with Moelter’s essay, her topic is very intriguing and pulled me in right away. Throughout the essay she did a good job of adding variety to the beginning of her sentences, rather than just using the same words over and over, she utilized different strategies to make her sentences come to life. She also blended her paragraphs together very well, creating an easy to read essay. Moving to Roby’s essay, she did a great job constructing her sentences. She used a wide variety of sentence starters and sentence structures to help keep the essay interesting. She also explained everything in a very detailed manner, to ensure the reader understood what she was saying. Next, I looked at Kueter’s essay. Kueter started her essay off with a situation/story with vivid imagery and great sentence structure and flow. I thought this was a very unique idea, and it really eased me into the essay. Throughout the essay, she did a great job of starting sentences in different ways; utilizing gerunds, prepositional phrases, etc. All of the paragraphs flowed together nicely, making it easy to read. Lastly, I looked at Hoffman’s essay. Straight from the beginning, he was able to structure his sentences in a way that made it almost feel up-beat and happy. This is a very difficult thing to do with just written words, but I believe he accomplished this throughout the essay. He did a great job of using descriptive wording and varying his sentence starters. A specific part that stood out to me was when he used the word literally, which is often misused, but then explained why he used it, in order to make his point as clear as possible. Overall, his sentence structure and wording is excellent in every aspect.
6 Steffel
The people at my table all possess very different and unique styles of writing especially in essay form, which I assume would correlate to all other forms of writing. We do discuss daily how are essays are looking and what has both worked and not worked within our essays. While the styles that we write in do vary significantly with Connor writing more like an F. Scott Fitzgerald and Aly really using a heavy background knowledge to enhance her essays I do feel there are some key aspects that do portray the amazing characters that each person is. Jessica is a very well rounded writer there isn't a topic she can pound out and make sound amazing while doing it and although I haven't gotten a chance to truly see how she writes because she does powerpoints I can tell through the way she expresses her thoughts in our conversations. She is a great person and it does show in her writing which portrays that same quality. Aly is not confident in her writing which is terrible because she truly is really good. Her writing has a great tendency to flow through all five pages, I am also really jealous of her ability to maintain and extremely coherent idea thought she reaches all the boundaries to a topic always finding someway to tie them together into a neat little bow like the ones you would see on a christmas morning. She has a knack for writing and I wish she would trust herself, Connor is amazing, I read his Classification essay leaving him a note that explained how I have read more than likely 200 hundred books in the last year or so and through it all while reading his essay I could only bring to mind two paragraphs of literature. The final two paragraphs to Scott’s, The Great Gatsby are some of the greatest works of writing in history and his essays flow to the same beat. He types with the same blood as the greats and I really want to begin writing project that is more free to see what he can do when he is let loose. He has the style, the vocab, and perfect motifs within his writing to really achieve some great things.
7 Haase
Bryce- While bryce struggles to get words on paper by the deadline, in this essay what i have read and in other essays i have read of his, he is very good at putting his own thoughts and experiences into his works. Bias as it might be, it really added to an essay just like it would add to a lesson or story when there are real life experiences that help their audience better relate to the point that they are trying to make. In fact, in most cases when a reader really enjoys reading an essay, it’s when they personally relate to their story. I think this adds to the interest factor in his writings.
Abi- Abi also does a really nice job of incorporating stories into her works, and while not particularly in this essay, it sticks out. In her causal essay, you can really tell that she researched her topic because she has little facts sprouted all throughout her essay. Abi also does a nice job of varying her sentence structure and not starting a sentence the same way over and over again which helps the reader stay interested. She also did a good job of putting in her citations right away so that it was easier to make sure she had what she needed for her works cited page.
Jacob- Jacob’s writing is dope as always. His topic is interesting and I think it applies to most people so they can relate to it. It is something that I knew kind of happened but I never knew why so I thought it was interesting to read when he actually explained the phenomenon about how time moves faster as you get older. He does a great job of varying his sentence structure and adding his own wits to make the paper more fluid and attractive to his audience.
7 Christie
My pod has very compelling and very deep topics that they are discussing in their essays. they all have a lot of good points and theories to why people do the things they do. In Carson essay, she discusses underage drinking, a real problem in todays society. she transitions reasons very well and keeps me involved during the essay. I have looked at her essay multiple times when ive gotten stuck on another sentence to write. she switches up the beginning words in her sentences to keep things from getting mundane and repetitive. Haase has a very compelling essay on mental illness and why people think about it the way they do. It really hit home for me because i knew someone who had mental illness and committed suicide. the facts and statistics she had was very shocking and i found it very interesting. she really gets her point across using great language and wording. she makes it very easy to understand and to follow. Scherbs essay was very eye opening on how time flys as we age, our lives become so busy and we never really have down time. you reminisce about when you were younger and had less responsibilities. i found his conversation with house very entertaining also it gave me some good ways to write things more creatively and make my essay more entertaining for others to read
7Tingle
It is very interesting to see that as the year as gone on, our writing capabilities have improved tremendously. I really enjoyed all of my tablemate’s essays: Wickersham, Else, and Bogensbergers. Wickersham’s introduction really caught my interest. It is very descriptive and easy for me to picture in my head. He is writing about ‘dreams of falling’, and he begins his essay by stating “You are plummeting towards the ground”, and then continues with similar, almost intense kind of tone in his sentences to really hook your interest in the story. As the reader questions why they relate to well to what he is describing (hypnagogic jerk), he then states what the phenomenon is with evidence to back up his reasoning.
I also enjoyed reading through Else’s introduction. It started off with background information to make the reader think about the things he mentions, and he backs up each of his statements with elicit evidence. He talks about the motives of pop culture and how it affects our current day society. Plus, his sentence structure flows well with each paragraph.
Bogensberger’s introduction is similar to Wickershams, in that it creates an intense tone to the essay that makes the reader driven to read more and more. Her essay is about stage fright; I knew right from reading the title of her essay that I wanted to read it, as I have performed on a stage in front of hundreds of people for since I was little, and I am too familiar with what stage fright is and how it feels. Her introductory paragraph is very detailed and easy to visualize, and includes a variety of hypophoras to really make the reader think.
I ended up starting over on my essay this week because I was struggling so bad trying to write about my topic, but I was too stubborn to change it. I hope my essay meets the standards of my peers.
6 Forster
My table mates are Eigenberg, Etrheim, McGee, and Kluin. I enjoyed reading through each of their essays and gained a new perspective from each of them. First, I read Eigenberg’s essay. He wrote about why people are dishonest on surveys, which was extremely relevant considering the amount of surveys taken by my classmates over the course of the past couple weeks. I thought using The Bible as a source was a great idea by Eigenberg. This source adds immense credibility to an essay and makes it relatable to large section of the population, even some who do not practice Christianity. Additionally, Eigenberg correctly used internal sets of appositives or modifiers throughout his essay. For example, he wrote, “Another effect that lying on a survey could have is lowering (or heightening) expectations of someone”. His use of modifiers added to the readability of his essay. Next, I read Etrheim’s essay. She wrote about why people enjoy rollercoasters. Her essay was a fun one to read. I especially enjoyed her introduction paragraph because I felt that the structure of sentences including questions really helped to engage me as a reader and spark my interest. McGee wrote about why cliques form. This topic is applicable to all high school students, so I believe she picked a great topic to elaborate on. She did well developing functional transitions that helped her essay flow rather than feel choppy. Lastly, Kluin wrote about why people listen to and play music. This topic interested me because personally, I have never thought to question this common activity, and this essay made me do just that. She does an amazing job of varying the beginning of sentences, always keeping the reader engaged. This helps her essay not become redundant or predictable, both qualities that make a piece more enjoyable for me to read. Each one of my table mates has done exceptional work in developing an educational and meaningful essay. I believe all four pieces of writing are beneficial to any reader who chooses to observe them. Doing so myself has affected my writing skills for the better.
7 Woodward
As I read through Blue, Livingston, and Scholten’s essays I am in awe at how much all of our writing has changed already just within the first quarter of our senior year. The first thing I noticed while reading Blue’s essay was just how relatable he has with his audience. He uses things like songs and activities that relate to most teenagers’ lives to keep our attention on his essay. For example, he uses snuggling up on a rainy day on the couch with an embrace from a blanket while watching Netflix and “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beetles, which are both things we as readers can see ourselves doing or hear that song right away in our head. Livingston’s essay has great transitions such as “contrary to belief” and “through cobblestone streets and old fashioned buildings walked the volunteers,” which are both great ways to begin awesome, varied sentences. Along with great transitions, Livingston has very insightful information regarding her topic. You can tell she has done her research and is very passionate about her topic. It’s one thing to find great research, but implementing it into an essay can sometimes be tricky. I believe Livingston did a great job of finding useful facts that really allude to her topic and strengthen her essay overall. Scholten does a great job with varying his sentence lengths. He is excellent at adding detail with adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, which both give readers just a little bit more insight on his research and overall topic. One thing Scholten, and myself, should try to do a better job of is adding more upper level words instead of using the same words like great, cool, etc. When he does this, then his five vocabulary words stick out a lot and it is very obvious that those words were only put into the essay due to a requirement placed on it. Overall, my table mates are making excellent progress this semester!
3 Roby
My tablemates are Gage, Molly, Braden, and Morgan. While looking at Molly’s essay I was impressed by the amount of effort she put into it. Her topic, why people have phobias, is so interesting and she went above and beyond giving much more than is required. To me the idea that phobias are genetic or are inherited from parents and relatives is extremely interesting. I remember while taking her survey, one of the questions was “are you afraid of snakes?”. I answered yes, naturally then was questioning my own fears when I saw that the next question was “why are you afraid of snakes?”. I did not have a real reason, only that I have felt afraid of them forever. Molly’s essays always are masterpieces of work and she always shocks me with her amazing writing skills. The next essay I looked at was Gage’s. Gage’s essay topic, Why do we greet, is also an interesting topic to me being that I work in a retail store and ask this question to people all day. The main point he makes in his essay is that we all ask people “how are you?” and most people respond with just “good” no matter how they are actually feeling that day. His essay topics are always very unique and creative and I feel that he puts a lot of work into each composition. Morgan’s essay is about why people have nightmares and night terrors, which is a perplexing yet fascinating topic. Her writing is always very impressive and well put together, there is so much flow in her essay and it is very easy to read. Morgan’s introduction paragraph, composed of mostly questions, is so powerful with vivid imagery. Lastly I read Braden’s essay about things that go viral in media. A very interesting topic that confuses me, why something so little and stupid can circle around the internet in evolving forms for months, I am looking forward to reading his finished essay. I think that all of my classmates are amazing writers and I love to hear feedback from each one of them. Every idea that is put on paper in this composition class completely blows my mind because of the genius creativity.
6 Baldridge
My favorite thing about Carly Campbell’s essay is the amount of questions she asked the reader. I liked this because it made it more intriguing to read and kept me interested. She also chose a very solid topic because a lot more people ignore their prescriptions than you would think there was. She also used a large variety of words to begin her sentences, which created more creativity. Ben Clemenson’s writing was very fascinating. I really liked his topic because it was clever and is a very good thing to be looked into more deeply. He used a good amount of facts and expressed a lot of truth in his writing. While I loved everything about Lindemann’s essay, one of my favorite things about it was the title. Her introduction paragraph was also very intriguing. She used many facts which is excellent and sophisticated words, making her essay sound more intelligent. It is a relatable topic and is a good one to be researched. Tattoos are very permanent, so it is good to know why people get them done. Koehn’s essay was a good one to read as well. Her sentence structure was properly done and she didn’t repeat words very often. I hope the best for my table and their accomplishments in their essays. This one was also very relatable because I, like many others, am obsessed and addicted to my phone for social media and technology. She had very supportive facts to back up all of her statements. Overall I enjoyed reading all of my tables essays and I wish nothing but the best for all of them. I appreciate their effort in working on their essays and helping me with mine the best they can. I hope to use some of their techniques in my own writing and better myself as a writer.
1 Reese
Back in the october 6th blog post i said that i struggle with transitions from paragraph to paragraph. I struggle to make them flow seamlessly together like I want them too to make my writing that much better. On this note I think that Klamm does a very good job with this and I will probably try to implement some of the ways to she transitions into my essays in the future. I also like some of the adverbs that Meyer uses in his essay, they help make his points much clearer and provide more detail and depth to his writing. I think my adverbs are decent but i could improve because I tend to find myself using words like “very” a lot even though I could easily provide a much better word that makes my writing better. Ellis has extremely good sentence starters, they are not repetitive and make it seem like the essay is just flowing along without any friction. She also limits the use of the boring sentence starters like “there is,” “this is,” “there are.” I know I am guilty of doing this on many occasions and it makes my essays somewhat boring which in return makes it harder for me to write because I can not get into it like I usually can when i'm writing a long paper. If I can not get into the paper I’m writing then my grade suffers as well and if I implement new ideas to help me write I think I increase my drive to write my essays. I also want to say that everyone at my table do an impressively good job with just writing in general, none of their essays are boring from what I have read so reading them is extremely interesting and fun, never dull.
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