Narrative essay blog task--due Nov. 17
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What are your best literary devices--in your scholarship essays or in your narrative essay--and why? You'll want to make even your scholarship/application/admission essays literary too. Work a little alliteration, metaphor, imagery, irony, symbolism, analogy, and more. If you avoid literary devices in your scholarship essays, write about your strategies to promote yourself without bragging. Type 300+ words. (pictured is Yann Martel, a master of literary devices)
92 comments:
3 Kueter M
I chose to write a narrative on my experience in fifth grade with mentoring a second grader, which helped me understand my future career choice. Within this essay, I used similes to describe what this little second grader looked like and how she acted. These similes would be my best literary devices because it helps the reader picture exactly what I saw. When I explain that this little girl’s eyes were as big as the moon, the reader knows she was terrified to met me. Also when I explain that her voice was as inaudible as a mouse’s voice, the readers also know that she struggled to speak to me. Also when I stated that her eyes twinkled like stars, the reader knew she was happy to see me. The reader understands these things without me directly telling them which makes this literary device so powerful. I also use a metaphor to describe this little second grader: she was my ray of sunshine, literally warming me and illuminating my path. This also helps the reader picture a girl whom they have never met before. They now know she is shy, happy, and kind; all due to literary devices. I also used a lot of imagery to describe my setting in which this event took place: a school. I described the classroom I was in with the multitude of children running around. I also described the weather of that day and the atmosphere of recess. This also is one of my best literary devices because it also helps me recreate this story for the readers. There are also other literary devices I used among my essay like alliteration and onomatopoeia which also helps keep your readers interested. It is difficult to tell an event to someone who was not attending the event; however, literary devices make that possible in a different, less boring, way.
3 Kueter A
I wrote a narrative about the time I got a concussion at a birthday party, after the birthday girl’s parents told me not to go on it because I would get hurt. The lesson I learned in the end was that your parents, most of the time, are always right. I chose to learn it the hard way but I could have learned it the easy way if I just listened to their advice to no go on the trampoline. My symbol was the trampoline, and it resembled the obstacles that kids must overcome (or jump over) in their lives and most of the time these problems can be avoided by listening to their parent’s advice. Although most problems in life will not be as black and white as jumping on a trampoline or not jumping on a trampoline, you should still seek your parent’s help. Throughout the narrative I used various imagery techniques to help readers better picture, in some cases feel, what I was going through. I described the initial pain from my concussion as a knife going into the back of my head causing the reader to be able to picture and feel the pain I was going through. I went on to say that I felt paralyzed and could not make out the words people were screaming around me. For a moment, the reader felt what I felt and they could not hear them either, feeling as hopeless as I did, causing them to want to read on. In another part I explained how scared and awkward I felt by relating how everyone was looking at me when I woke up to being an animal in a zoo. Also I described how overwhelmed I was by saying that I felt acid rising in my lungs as if I was going to throw up. These techniques are the best to help readers picture just what was going on in my head and how I felt during the experience; even though they were not there.
6 Zajicek
I am currently writing scholarship essays in the pursuit to try and convince colleges to want me to attend their university. Throughout my writing process I tend to write with a lot of imagery and symbolic meanings. In many of my essays I symbolize how the obstacles in my life are like the molds of my life. Going through certain challenges in my life and meeting certain people has really molded me into who I am today. People I met along my journey have taught me valuable lessons that I will always remember.Through this symbolism I feel it connects with the reader by linking the things in my personal life to something simple that everyone knows or can relate to. As I talked about the way I was raised this is where my writing with imagery comes into play. The way I was raised has taught me so many valuable life lessons that I carry with me everyday of my life. For example, I was raised to embrace being different. I was raised with parents who split up, and as I grew up I found the joy in it but when I was younger I found it a constant struggle and a thing I would try to hide from everyone. Through this example I found my self writing with immense detail and imagery. Stemming from this example I wanted to pull at the heartstrings a little bit, I made sure my words described how painful the hard times were and how joyful the successes were. When writing with detail you can really start to pull the reader in and convince them into whatever you are talking about. I would highly recommend when writing for the purpose of persuasion that you use literary devices that connect the reader to you. The reader needs to stay intrigued and with imagery and symbolism I believe I have done just that.
Corcoran 6
In complete honesty I don’t necessarily go out of my way to incorporate literary devices in my writing, though if I had to dissect my technique and my strengths I would have to say it lies in my imagery and voice. I like to believe I have always had a strong ability at writing and presenting my thoughts clearly. I always try my best to be as descriptive as I can to add depth and sincerity to what I am writing about. I like to elaborate and clearly present myself, for I hate for points i'm trying to make or topics i'm trying to discuss to become muddled and incoherent cause that defeats the purpose of the writing entirely, it is about sending the message clearly that is important. I also think I project my thoughts through my writing in a unique voice, I try to use good words to provide fluency and impact. I never try to give the impression of being pretentious or unnecessarily wordy. I just think that a colorful vocabulary makes writing nicer to read! A way I stay away from bragging is how I am using passion as a focus point rather how good I am. I am mostly talking about where my passion derived from and how the passion came to grow and how I have developed skills to help me become more adept in what I wish to pursue. I am trying my very best to come off as genuine as I can, I don’t want to make it seem like I am presenting myself falsely. I am acknowledging my human weaknesses and how I overcame them and the result ended up being beneficial to my overall attitude and mindset. I think they will see and feel the passion and truth in my writing which is what I am going for.
7Huska
To be completely honest, I do not think that I used a lot of literary devices in my scholarship essay. But if I were to pick any out, it would be my symbolism and descriptiveness. I used symbolism when I talked about what has helped me decide on what career path I would like to go down. I said that what has went on in my life has helped shaped me into the person I am today and whom I wish to be in the future. I have met people and have gone through things that teach me little lessons along the way that help me strive to where I want to go. Talking about my life helps others relate it to theirs or helps the reader relate it to what I want to accomplish or receive through my education and that particular scholarship. When I use descriptive words to describe who I am it helps the reader understand more of who I am and who I wish to become. It helps them picture what I have done in life to get me to where I am and possibly help them imagine what I could do with my future education and the scholarship. I stay away from bragging when I use my passion for helping people as my reasons for wanting to do it in the future. I talk about my volunteering but I do not brag about it. I use it as a way to wrap together what I want to do in the future with what I have done in the past. I am trying my best to not brag about anything in my life nor ask for pity. I want the reader to know my life has had ups and downs and that is why I want to pursue what I want to pursue and that whatever scholarship I am working towards will help in my education immensely.
Reindl 1
In the choice between writing about a five hour time in my life or promoting myself to colleges, I decided to write 1700 words of scholarship essays. I made this choice simply because I feel I have an easier time writing about questions that I have to answer, rather than creating the question and answering it as well. In my scholarship essays, I tend to stray from the norm, I give the creative answer because it stands out from others, but it is usually the true voice from myself. I find it very easy to complete some of the essays because I can get creative with it. When comparing myself to others, I feel that I am different and it has to be shown to others. For example, in one of my essays I had to write about my favorite word in 250 words or less. Instead of giving a generic answer like picking a random word from a dictionary, I used my experiences to pick a word. I took German for two years, expanding my vocabulary even further than I would have in any given time. With that, I explained how my favorite word is Schildcröte, glamorous sounding to Americans, but in all reality, it means turtle, just another noun in English. I take the use of a generic noun, and make it sound special because of the experiences I had. I find that the way you tell your “story” to others can impact whether you are the average joe or an extraordinary person. While all scholarship essays are not exactly you telling an account of your life, I find that using an explanation to correlate it with your life can improve your writing to a whole different level. Using a story can also help you reach a word count that looms over you.
7 Van Kalsbeek
I decided to write scholarships essays instead of the narrative this week. The reason I felt that this was more important is because these essays will help me mold my writing into sentences that college administrators will want to read. I used imagery in one of my essays by describing my favorite possession in order for the reader to be able to see the possession in his or her mind. Along with this imagery I gave symbolism with this object because it has sentimental value to me because it was given to me by my father at a very young age and I still hold it dear to my heart. Another essay topic that I was able to put some literary devices in was the one asking how I spent my last two summers. I used imagery in this to describe I had spent a day attending a school in the Dominican Republic and heard the angelic voices of the children singing to me as I left the school that day. While another part of summer was how I spent it in Mexico where I learned the culture of the Mayans and visited one the most famous ruins, Chichen Itza. Symbolism was used during this part of the essay to show that their is three hundred and sixty five stairs to represent each day of the year in the mayan calendar. The longer one of my scholarship essay was to tell the administration office why they should donate some of their money to my cause. I used symbolism by showing them what I would do with my life and explaining my short term and long term goals. This showed that I had determination and that their time and effort would not go to waste by contributing to my future education.
1 Meyer
Between writing a narrative essay over five hours of my life or writing 1700+ words worth of scholarship essays, I decided my life has not had enough adventure for five hours at a time often; therefore I chose to compose the scholarship essays. Personally, I believe it to be easier to write about multiple topics instead of one constant one for five pages. I believe that writing scholarships essays is killing two birds with one stone, as it completes the assignment for my composition class, yet also are things that I can include towards college applications. Also, with written word limits, I feel it is much easier to express my purpose of the essay and it is less difficult to understand it. I do not intentionally use literary devices often, but I will come across the occasional examples of alliteration or irony. These devices are two I have not yet used in my scholarship essays, but I have included them in recent essays such as the comparison and causal essays. Sometimes it is an arduous task for me to insert literary devices, as I feel it distracts the reader and my essay becomes sloppy. Writing about myself and my accomplishments are topics I try to avoid when composing. I feel that no matter how hard I try to not appear conceited, the back of my mind tells me otherwise. I believe it is easier to achieve accomplishment when no one is watching, however this may create skeptical believers. I wish people would spectate my goals without me having to tell them, because what is the point of accomplishing something no one knows about? Talking about myself is a topic I do not enjoy, as I would rather hear the successfulness of others, whose experiences could assist me in chasing my accomplishments and hopefully achieving them in the future.
7 Hanson
I chose to write scholarship essays in hope to get myself out there for colleges to go after me. In my scholarship essays my strengths are similes, symbolism, and imagery. One of my favorite lines in my essays would be, “In short powerlifting has taught me, believe in yourself, but also to be yourself. Have your own style, swagger, charisma don’t pull from others to create yourself.” Even though symbolism or imagery are not used, irony is what is used instead. When I say “pull from others” it is ironic since I am talking about how powerlifting has changed me, which in powerlifting deadlifting is known as pulling. Another literary device I used was some similes. I feel my best simile is, “So, just like the seasons change, I changed, and this inevitable change was for the better.” The reason I like this simile is because it is inevitable for the seasons to change, which is how I felt about my change throughout high school. Throughout my essays, even the earlier essays done in the year, I feel I have strong use of imagery . For me, I feel my early years I had the consistency of play doh, somewhat firm, yet still easily pliable by my surroundings. This use of imagery really paints a picture for a reader, picturing a young boy who is easily influenced by what he is surrounded by. For me personally, imagery is my favorite literary device to use. I feel this way because with imagery one can really paint a picture to the reader of what is going on in a novel or depict the emotions of a character. Another reason I like to use imagery is since I do not have to think or tell myself to use it in my essays, it just naturally comes to me.
Wrightsman 1
I chose to write my scholarship essay over a few points in my life and what those points have lead me to today. The main literary device I use is symbolism and how things relate to experiences that have gone on in my lifetime. One strategy I also use frequently is showing emotion through my writing. I use words like thrived, hardships, and independent. I use these words to show how strongly I feel about what I am writing about and that I am qualified to write about these experiences because they happened directly to me. Another literary device that you could say I have used somewhat in my essay is imagery. I talk about some things in my essay that would not be easy to read unless you had pictures to go along with them. By using imagery and choice words, I allow the person reading it to firmly see in their minds what I am trying to explain. Being descriptive and thorough with explanations help in that way too. I am trying to focus now on bragging about myself without sounding self conceited. The way I do that is talking about accomplishments I have made in life and thanking people for helping me make those accomplishments. If I did not add the thank yous to people, I feel I would be sounding self conceited. Another way to do that is by sounding like I went through many hardships to get to those accomplishments. If I make it sound like everything came easy to me, that would not be good. It is in my best interest to put in there the hard work I do and things I have to overcome. Overall, I feel that my essay should jump out to the essay committee that is reading it because I have strong words and I use strategies to make the reader want to help me with scholarships without being so self centered in my writing.
1 Top
The use of literary devices in writing my scholarship essays present the image that I am deserving of scholarship money. The literary devices helped make my essays sound scholarly and that I am worthy of investment. Helping others to relate to what I am writing about and create a general understanding, literary devices play a crucial role. I have yet to use any alliteration due to not having an appropriate situation to place one in. I have used an allegory or two because I feel as if it aides in the understanding of the subject, putting it in a different perspective. In the essay that I tell about my injury, the series of unfortunate events leading up to, and also including the climax, would be considered a tragedy. Although I am not seeking sympathy, I feel it has played an important role in shaping me into the person I am today. I go on to explain what life is like afterwards, but overall the tragedy is the injury itself. Throughout this essay I unexpectedly used imagery through specific details about the particular experience. Also using foreshadowing in the same essay, I begin with saying, “in April of 2016 I hit a roadblock,” which foreshadows something had gone wrong. An analogy I used was when I mentioned making children at Royal Family Kids Camp feel important and special. I compared the way we treated them to the way kings and queens are treated to show how much effort we put into making them feel this particular way. By comparing these two it hopefully brought the reader to a level of understanding when it comes to the treatment of our campers. Incorporating literary devices in my writing is something that does not come naturally for me. Some are unplanned, while some have to be worked into the essay after the fact. I know as I continue to be educated in this area my writing skills will dramatically improve and these additives to my essay will eventually become natural.
1 Talcott
I decided to write scholarship essays as opposed to writing a narrative essay. I chose this option because I really needed to get these essays done, so now having them as an assignment I have no excuse not to finish them. It is somewhat of killing two birds with one stone. Speaking of killing two birds with one stone, I am not going to incorporate literary devices into my scholarship essays. There really is no use for alliteration, metaphor, imagery, irony, symbolism, analogy, or any other literary device in the certain essays I am writing. Instead my essays are full of strategies for promoting myself being overly boastful. My essays are all directed at the United States Service Academies, so only boasting about my achievements would be a very bad idea. Most if not all the applicants for the United States Service Academies have garnered the same amount of achievements and accolades over their high school careers as I have. In these essays I can not boast about how I am as qualified as others, but I must set myself apart from the competition. In the majority of my essays I strongly push my willingness to serve my country and my team oriented leadership skills. As I basically applying to become an officer in the United States Military dictating my previous leadership experiences and excitement to serve is essential. I also promote myself in one essay by talking about my abilities to overcome adversity and make the best out of any situation. The admissions boards for the United States Service Academies are most certainly looking for qualities such as these when they are selecting students. Of course I wish to make these essays as best as I can because the admissions boards are trying to decipher between some of the most qualified candidates in the country to see which of them is deserving of basically a $400,000 scholarship. So hopefully these essays turn out well.
17 November 2016
3 Smit
Currently, I have few devices and they are far spread between the short-essays I have to write. The use of literary devices in my college application essays never occurred to me as a device seems far more appropriate in a narrative-style essay. Although, while writing my college application essays, I attempted to weave imagery into my work to paint a picture on the minds of the admissions committee. Imagery was often used when discussing events in my life, pushing the understanding to previously unattainable heights. For example, the tale relating the events of my summer camp adventure focused on the feelings I experienced. I explained the amount of time I put in to create a solid lesson plan for my own class, leaving a good impression of the camp on the boys and leaders. The question asking what I am passionate about used imagery as well. The time spent at CTE has provided plenty of events to discuss and “brag” about. Many of my experiences there include dissections and professional lab work. The opportunities presented at the academy have solidified my love for the medical sciences. One dissection was of a heart and lung set donated from a John Morrell pig. Arriving at class that afternoon, we were confronted with three plates (one for each block) of hearts with a trachea and full lungs attached. My essay portrays the excitement I felt while attending this course and the work I put into it. I tried to incorporate similes and metaphors as well. Together, the two created a better understanding for the reader. Not only a better understanding but also gave my sentences a good amount of variance. While writing future essays, I will be sure to include as many literary devices as I can. They make the composition more of a joy to read.
3 Waldera
I chose to compose the scholarship essays. I still tried to add as many literary devices as I could to enhance my writing. In one scholarship I am writing about a conflict that I have faced in my life and how I was able to overcome and learn from it. I used flashback to explain the challenge. I talked about an event that happened a little bit over a year ago. I explained the situations that unfolded throughout the day. I also used suspense as It was about me competing at the state wrestling tournament. Alongside that, in this essay, I included imagery to explain some of the more interesting events that unfolded. I also used a few metaphors, one being in this essay. I also used a form of conflict as I was faced against other opponents. I also described a setting to give the reader a clearer view of what is going on, the time, and the place the event is happening. I also used amplification to make my stories sound more interesting. However, I never strayed away from the truth. In my scholarship essay about why I would like to attend college, I used a large amount of foreshadowing. The main reason I did this was to show that I seek success I the future. I also conveyed some of the steps that it would take for me to reach success in the future. There is also other simple literary devices that I added throughout my writing, an example being conflict or rising action. After writing this blog task it has made me realize that I need to add more types of literary devices. I will do this in hope that it makes my writing more interesting and that it will give it a different aspect. Literary devices are usually used to display thoughts easier in text so hopefully by adding them people will be able to understand the main points of my writing and why I am writing.
Hoffman 3
I chose to do the narrative. Not that I have anything against doing a scholarship essay; it’s that I thought to myself that I will be doing a scholarship essay eventually, so I might rather do something to prepare for such thing, than type immediately and wish I was greater when I turn it in. I absolutely love the use of similes and metaphors in my essay, almost as much as I am happy that I can use first person, such as in this particular blog. I have started watching a motivational speaker on YouTube, Shane Koyczan, who has many astounding speeches on his channel, where he talks of multifarious subjects; my favorite part of them all being his use of similes and metaphors. In his video, “Troll,” alluding to cyber bullies, he states, “...as if crushing our spirits would make your mirrors cast better reflections than the ones they gave.”, and in his most popular poem, To This Day, he states, “He is a stick of TNT lit from both ends, could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends in the moments before it’s about to fall.” a truly powerful metaphor. This inspired me to use many powerful metaphors and similes in my essay, of course it did. In my narrative, in a bleak moment, I stated a memory I had of how I felt cold in a moment, and the simile added color and visuals, “The wind of an open window was chilling the room, but the cold I felt was not skin deep.”. I am grateful as I can be that I discovered this man, Shane Koyczan, so I can turn my keyboard into a color palette. So I may color my words well enough that those who read them will tremble in excitement.
3Bowman
Throughout the writing of my scholarship essays, I have found it quite unnecessary, and in some ways surprisingly difficult, to incorporate literary devices. However, I am only through two of my four scholarship essay prompts, and I can potentially see one of my future prompts requiring analogies to me made and possible irony to be utilized. Though I may eventually use these devices as I continue to expand my essays, that is not what I am striving for overall as I compose these essays. Instead, I want to make myself seem appealing to these foundations without directly bragging about myself and making it appear that I have an inflated ego. I would like to appear to them as a young adult thirsting for a higher degree of education, while also being open to working diligently in order to achieve this higher education. I try avoid over emphasizing my talents and everything that they would be lacking if they were not to award me with this grant. Rather, I try to focus on how I will use my talents and knowledge to positively impact myself and the world around me. In other words, I try to exhibit to them that I am looking at things from a long term perspective(ten to fifteen years out) and how it will impact the world around me, rather than only planning for the next one to four years, and making the rest up as I go. However, as easy as this may seem, it is quite difficult to talk about ourselves, and all that we have to offer without, sounding conceited. As I continue to think about what I am writing, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to avoid sounding “full of ourselves” is to just--plain and simple--be genuinely honest to the person we are writing to. Because, as they say, honesty is no doubt the best policy.
6Long
Right now, I am currently working on writing scholarship essays, rather than the narrative essay. I decided to write the scholarship essays instead because I thought it would be useful for the future, when I actually have to apply for these scholarships. I do not use too many literary devices, but I am using strategies such as imagery and voice in order to convince the committees that I should be considered for the scholarship. I try to use powerful words, not necessarily large and confusing words, in order to add more meaning to the essay. In order for the person to get the full picture, I do try and use imagery to be more descriptive and thorough in my explanations. I want to make my essay stand out from others, and not be something common that they read. I try to be myself while writing, and not to try and sound too smart or like I’m trying too hard. In the essays that I am writing about myself, I don’t try and brag too much but rather talk about qualities that I have that make me a good student. Writing about success is also a main theme through my essays. I can easily describe what being successful means to me and they ways that I plan on achieving that lasting success. Going through rough patches is also something that I mention, in order to make it sound like everything doesn’t just come easy for me. I also find that writing about things other than yourself can sometimes be much easier. I wrote an essay about things I love and another about an unsung hero in the community, both were much easier than the ones you have to write about your own successes. Overall, I find that writing about things other than yourself is much more enjoyable.
7 Haase
I chose to do the scholarship essays because it helps me fulfill both the requirement for class and it has the potential to earn me scholarship money, so why not hit two birds with one stone? Personally, I struggle with coming up with my own literary devices and have been avoiding it entirely up to this point. Now that Mr. Christensen has pointed them out, I will try to incorporate it into my scholarship essays to help try to convince the scholarship essay judges to pick me over other applicants. Since I have not incorporated them into my writing until now, I have tried to promote myself without sounding like I am bragging. This provides a new kind of challenge, but one that can be overcome. For example, in my scholarship essays I try to emphasize how I got to a certain accomplishment, the people that helped me get to that accomplishment, and how actually accomplishing that goal has influenced my life, instead of bragging about the accomplishment itself. I think that explaining how you got to your accomplishments can show your work ethic, dedication, and humbleness. As stated by Miley Cyrus, “It’s the climb”. While knowing your goals and completion of those goals is important, how you got to those goals is equally as important. I also explained how my accomplishments have influenced me going forward in my life, showing that not only did accomplish something really awesome, but that I did something really awesome and how it makes me the person I am today. For example, I wrote a scholarship essay about my creativity and told the story about my ranch outfit going viral. While going viral was really cool, the creativity behind it, the people that help me make it possible, and the story behind the ranch outfit is the real accomplishment. I am also currently writing an essay about a former teammate who has had a substantial influence in my life, and I tell the story of us, and how I use what she taught me in my everyday life now that I have filled her shoes on our team.
6 Sherron
I chose to write scholarship essays only because I am applying for a lot of scholarships so I thought it would be helpful to get as many done as I can and use it for an assignment. (It’s like hitting two birds with one stone, except one bird is money.) For the scholarship essays, I have chosen to make them as personal and relatable to myself as possible. This includes using examples from my own life that I can relate back to the prompt or illustrate as an example of my learning. With these examples, the biggest problem I have had is in framing them the way I want to fit into the prompt or with the amount of space I have. All the essays I am writing have either word or character counts (character counts being the more difficult one), and when you use examples, you have to give enough background for the reader to understand what is really happening. It can be difficult deciding how much time to spend on these examples, but I usually make them the bulk of my writing just so I can meet the larger word requirements.
Another thing that I try to use and consider while I am writing these essays is better word choice. Since I use examples, I want them to see and feel what I went through, and the only way I can do this is through vivid imagery. This also involves using words connotated the way I want them to feel, subtly persuading the reader to feel the same way I felt.
Sometimes, I inadvertently use alliteration in my writing. However, I do not think of this as something that college admissions counselors see and think better of me, so I do not worry as much about it. I also like to include humor and irony in my writing, just to lighten the mood. My style of writing is somewhat laid back, so if I can work a pun or joke in there, I think it shows my personality more as well.
1 Hauge
Instead of a narrative essay I chose to write some scholarship essays. One of the essay topic is “discuss a special attribute or accomplishment that sets you apart”. I wrote about my experience in New York City for dance that I had. I talk about my journey and process before I got to New York City. I also explained a little about the Joffrey Ballet Summer Intensive that was going to attend. I talked a little about the teachers and life lessons I experienced. I did not talk about myself in a boastful way. I did not go into too much detail about the difficulty and professional experience that I had. I wrote in a similar way for another topic about how I spent my last two summers. That one was a bit more vague because it was only suppose to be about 150 words. I feel the way I explained it left the reader intrigued and curious about me and how the summers went. I only gave a vague explanation in the hopes that the college would want to reach out to me and interested in giving me more money. I am sure that is not how it works but hey anything can happen I guess. The last two essays are about books and quotes. I wrote one about a book I read outside of school by Misty Copeland called Life in Motion. It is an autobiography about herself and her dance career. The book shows my interest in dance and willingness to branch out from your average teenage girl romance novel to a more serious knowledgeable one. The essay about a quote and how it has impacted me is from one of my favorite novels and movies: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I explain what it means to me and how my life has been affected by it.
7 Riley
I decided this week to work on a scholarship essay instead of a narrative essay because it fulfills the class assignment but it can also fill the position of when I have to apply for certain scholarships. I think writing about several different topics is a lot easier then just writing about one. Therefore, writing a scholarship essay is very useful for the future. I have not used a lot of literary devices but I am going to try and use more in my next topic for the scholarship essay. I do however use voice and imagery. It was easy to use imagery because I am writing about these that I love and are passionate about. I tried to use influential, commanding words and I also try to be very descriptive in the way I talk so that way it creates imagery and you can create the picture in others head. I am writing about who I admire, what I love, and why I want a college education. All of these things I am extremely passionate about. I have also used symbolism and how things relate to the person I have become or want to become in the future. It was much easier to express my purpose of this essay. Talking about my life has shaped me into the person I am. I have met certain people who have left multiple life lessons with me, and I can not imagine my life without them. I try and get the reader to understand my ups and downs throughout my scholarship essay. I have tried my best to be as descriptive and in depth as I can be and also try to be elaborate on my topics. I think my essay connects with the reader by linking the things in my life to something everyone can relate too. Overall, I feel that my essay is one that should jump out to others due to my descriptive words and imagery that is used throughout them all.
6 Koehn
I am currently working on writing my scholarship essays. I chose the scholarship essays over the narrative essay because I feel as if the scholarship essays will be beneficial in the future when I actually have to apply for them. Throughout my scholarship essay, I do include some literary devices. Literary devices are a great thing to include in your essays to add a little extra detail and it can really spice up your essay and make it stand out compared to others. It is very important to make your scholarships different and exciting so they are not just like every other scholarship essay applicant, because if they are too similar to other applicant’s essays than they will be seen as boring and redundant. In my essay, I have been using literary devices such as metaphors and similes. Metaphors and similes are a great way to add just a little extra detail that the reader may enjoy. Another literary device I have been using is symbolism. Symbolism makes the essays more interesting and maybe helps them relate to a specific time in their life as well. I have also been using flashbacks in scenarios to show why I became involved in specific activities. Alongside using literary devices, I have been talking about my athletic and academic skills and achievements while trying to avoid bragging about myself. I am doing this by stating my achievements, but also writing about the challenges I have faced along the way. To avoid bragging, I am also adding achievements that our whole teams has reached together and talking about my team as a whole. There is a fine line between promoting yourself and bragging about yourself and although it is hard to do, I believe I have found ways to make my essay not be braggy while showing them that I am worthy of a scholarship.
1 Brandsrud
Rather than writing an essay narrating a story of my life, not that I do not have that many interesting stories of my life, but rather I felt as though this opportunity would be used better if I took the last two weeks to write various scholarship essays. Considering that I have also recently been accepted into my top schools of choice, I was able to easily access their websites and fill out scholarship applications and find the essay topics that they have for students to write in an effort to get scholarship funds. Whilst filling out the application for South Dakota State University, I found that only one essay was available to students to write: a personal statement. I found it very difficult as I pride myself for maintaining a humble attitude no matter what the situation may be, so starting this essay was not an easy task for me. I spent many a days on simply thinking about what I wanted to say. Since I believe that I am humble I believe I was very successful in my ability to write of my accomplishments without seeming to be rubbing it in other people’s faces. I found that the hardest thing to do was to avoid redundancy, and I worry that I may have made the statement too long; however, since I will be using it for an actual application I will finalize it many, many times before it is printed and attached to the application. After the application, if I am selected I then must travel to Brookings to go through an interview process to hopefully receive a scholarship. I am avoiding the use of too many literary devices so I can solely focus on the word limit and the professionalism of the scholarship essay as scholarship essays require from students.
6 Etrheim
I had the choice to write a narrative essay about a time in my life or write scholarship essays I could send to colleges. I chose to write the scholarship essays. I made that decision because I feel writing the scholarship essays will help me enhance my composing and by trying to get colleges to want me at their university. Honestly I do not try to put in literary devices in my scholarship essays because I do not know how to make it flow without it sounding awkward but once I read through my essays I saw literary devices that I did use. Putting literary devices in scholarship essays is good because it shows colleges how you are a good writer. In some of my essays I have had imagery in them. Having imagery in your essays can help the reader put an image in their minds. I put an image in my reader's mind when I was describing my teammates and me reminiscing about our great memories throughout the volleyball season. I also put an image when describing what I love: my dog. I told the readers how my dog would come and greet me every day after a long day of school at the door as soon as I walked in my house. Another literary device I used was flashback. I talked about when I was little, how my sister convinced me to go out for volleyball and if I would not have, I would have never fallen in love with the sport of volleyball. Composing these scholarship essays can be a challenge because some are only a certain amount of words. So you need to be able to choose well written words together and leave out unnecessary words or sentences to keep it at the limited words.
6 Thompson
Instead of doing the narrative essay, I decided to take this two weeks to write some of scholarship essays that I needed to write at some point. I am writing scholarship essays for a variety of different scholarships that include why do I want to be a nurse, leadership characteristics that are important to me and my leadership, and the biggest influence in my life. Although these all sounded like easy topics, I have found that it is hard to answer the questions without going into a long explanation about why you believe that and what experiences you have done and not bragging about myself. In my scholarship essays I tell many stories about myself and how I got to be the way that I am today. In my influence essay, I talk about how my mom was my biggest influence because she has pushed me to have new experiences and make memories in life. With this essay I tried to make the reader feel a connection with my story and possibly relate to the story in their own life. In my nursing essays I talk a lot about the experiences that I have had that has helped my solidify that I want to become a nurse and like to help people. I hope the readers of this essay can see that I have done many things that make me want to help people in the future as a nurse and that I can be a great candidate for the nursing scholarships. The struggle with this essay is to not brag about everything that I have done, so to avoid that I try to involve a little snip it of the experience but not go overboard with the explanation. Finally with my leadership essay I did not want to brag about leadership qualities that I have so I try to talk about leadership qualities that I have heard people talk about that are good in a leader and see how I relate and lead with those characteristics. I have used the literary devices of imagery, atmosphere, and flashback really well. In the essays that I have written already I used flashback to explain the different points in my life that relate to the topic of the essay, I also use imagery and atmosphere to get the reader to imagine my story and how these experiences and people have influenced my life. I could use more of these literary devices to make the reader see my personality. I think this assignment has been more challenging because to me it is easy to write about things other than yourself.
Konz 1
I think my best literary device is the imagery I use to describe the sunrise. It says, “ We watched the glowing red sun gently progress over the horizon, creating an intense display of exquisite colors spanning the sky acting as a backdrop for the constant, calming waves crashing against the shore.” I think this sentence really helps the reader grasp how amazing this day that I am writing about began and it also shows how amazed I was about everything that this amazing trip entailed, starting with the sunrise. I hope to add more imagery as I continue to edit my essay. I also use alliteration to describe the “small, slimy salamanders” which I think helps add more description to the situation while making it light hearted and fun. I use alliteration again when I talk about this “very valuable vacation,” which is another one I really like because it really reflects my thoughts and feelings towards my week in Florida. In general, I really like using alliteration because I think it keeps it interesting and fun while adding more description. I still am working to add more literary devices including metaphors, irony and symbolism. Using foreshadowing, I mention “large gray animals” when I discuss the sunrise. I really like this foreshadowing too because the reader is probably thinking about a shark until they find out later that Sandi, Kate, and I see a West Indian Manatee instead of a shark. Thinking of metaphors and similes is a very difficult task for me because every time that I think I invent a good one, I quickly realize that it is trite and overused so it would not add anything special to my essay. Also, symbolism is hard for me to create too because when things make sense to me as a symbol, it probably would not make sense to the reader; I should develop my symbols more but that is a challenge in itself.
7 Knutson
I am working hard to include a lot of literary devices. They make the story i'm telling more interesting for the reader instead of having my sentences be repetitive in length and form. In my narrative I included several literary devices to improve my essay as a whole. Throughout the essay I use conflict. The conflict I am describing is the surgery my brother had to put in his trache. This conflict is present throughout my entire essay and is a recurring theme. I am working to include assonance in my essay which is a repetition of sounds produced by vowels within a sentence hopefully I can include this a few times in my essay because the words flow together well which I believe will add to my sentences. I use mood a lot in my essay to describe my feelings towards the events taking place. I describes the utter fear I had when Andrew was wheeled away and the bitter sadness I had when he called out to my dad because he was scared of what awaited him. I did this by digging deep into my feelings so the reader can truly understand the extent of my feelings for things. I also use setting in my writing to give the reader a description of where I am so it is almost as if they are going on the journey with my which is a literary device that makes reading so fun because you become a part of the story and you experience what the writer experiences. This is why I am attempting to use a lot of literary devices because I want whoever is reading my essay to go through my experience and see exactly how I felt about everything that happened that day taking them through the same journey I went through.
7 Woodward
I have decided to tackle the scholarship essays rather than the narrative this week. I know in the long run working on these for class credit and future scholarship essays will ease my stress later. It has been nice to have time in class to write these essays, because often times it is hard to sit down and write things not pertaining to high school at home. At first when I read the blog topic, I panicked, not knowing if I had any literary devices in my essays. After further discussion with my tablemates and Mr. C, I realized plot and theme were two very evident devices I used while composing. Plot is displayed in my essays when I am telling a story to display a characteristic I most would like to have. Servant-leadership was the main topic of one of my essays, and I used Dr. Talcott as an example. I explained how he incorporates servant-leadership in our school during homecoming and how we give to charities, which is most of the time students ideas of where to donate. Theme is also a key factor in one of my college admission essays. They asked how Christ has influenced by life over the past year and I went on to explain my philosophy of my senior year, “It’s not about you.” My whole essay revolved around this idea, even though I still went off into more details at some parts of explaining my life. My best strategy in promoting myself without sounding boastful is showing my true self. The more honesty and detail about my personal life in my essays are going to make the readers feel like they’ve known me for years; therefore, they will be more willing to award me with their money for a great education. I know this has paid off (getting personal and being totally honest) because I have received emails from colleges saying how much they enjoyed reading my essays and hoping I decide to come to their campus next fall.
1 Presler
I chose to write scholarship essays simply to have class time to write essays I would probably end up writing anyways. I have found it difficult to incorporate literary devices into these sort of essays because I try to sound more formal, since some potential future colleges will be looking at them. Whenever I attempt to add literary devices for enhancement of my writing, I usually do not like the way it sounds or the flow of the sentence. In the past I have never been a huge fan of symbolism and have never found much success in writing using it. Authors tend to have their own ideas that do not make much sense to me, so I shy away from that device often. I have used a limited amount of alliteration in these essays, which usually comes easier than the other literary devices. As I continue to work at improving the content of what I already have written and the couple hundred words I have left, I will focus in on using more imagery because, as a reader, I also enjoy when authors thoroughly describe situations and locations so you really get the idea of what was happening. I think overall my word choice has been doing fairly well, although with limited words it can be troublesome. Working on scholarship essays, I have discovered that writing about myself is one of the hardest forms of writing I have had to do because I prefer to write about events or other people. Thankfully, some of the essays are directed towards other people (like the someone who you admire essay, for example). I would not consider myself an arrogant person, and am naturally quiet about my skill set, so while writing these I do often times feel awkward. I am striving to make my sentences and writing sound educated, anticipating that this will propel me towards the top of the list of scholarship recipients for certain scholarships I apply for, using these prompts.
Willard 1
I feel I personally employee the use of a less than bland vernacular when describing varying things, specifically my surroundings. Consistently throughout the entirety of my narrative, I compare the a fourwheeler to a “metal stallion” of sorts. This oddly humanizes the machine and induces a sense of empathy. This metaphor suggests that the machine possess a sense of itself, and is capable of its own action based on it’s animalization. Therefore, rather than me controlling it, the two of us (the machine and I) worked in harmony although being entirely separate. I feel I generally do a good job of describing not only my surroundings, but also the way I might have been feeling at that time. For example, “I attempted to arise from the ditch in which I found myself, and stumbled slightly, I was considerably dazed, and everything including myself and the once mystifying forest around me felt heavy. I stood for a second before witnessing a pain unlike anything I had ever dealt with before in my young life. I looked to my left and then to my right. On my right was something that would have made any young person fear for their existence. My arm hung limp by my side, but not normally, rather in a twisted mangled mess of transversely fractured bone.” I found that by describing generally everything in the immediate area, including myself, the setting was accentuated. I compared the “land,” metaphorically, to a topographical utopia. This really accentuates the immense beauty that the area possessed, and added a contrast to the eventual massive mood change towards the latter of the story. The dialogue in my essay is short and sparing, yet powerful when it is introduced. I feel dialogue can get redundant in a story like this that is primary sensory in nature.
Galbavy 1
I chose to write scholarship essays for this project instead of doing the narrative. It didn’t really come down to which one was going to be harder for me. It came down to which one would help me more in the future so I chose the scholarship essay knowing that it would help me when I am sending scholarship essays out to colleges. I am not one for incorporating too many literary devices into my work and to many that may appear bad, but I believe I can successfully write a good essay without them. I like to have themes in my work though which is considered a literary device. In one of my scholarship essays I convey the idea that if you work hard at something then you can do it. I play football and I have worked hard these past four years and it payed off my senior year because we (the team) made it to the state championship game. I also believe that my work appears strong to my readers for I write essays with in my opinion good sentence flow and strong use of vocabulary. I believe that my strongest essay was probably my scholarship essay on why I believe in the importance of learning. I feel that I wrote a strong essay professing my beliefs on why learning is important while also teaching a lesson through my work. Some of my points can be looked at by my readers and maybe make them realize perhaps why learning is important. My second strongest essay was the scholarship essay on who I admire and why I admire them. I told my readers that I admire my grandpa. While telling the reasons of why I admire him I tried to explain my standpoint on why you should admire someone. I believe that admiring someone for their wealth or fame is not really a good cause for admiration. I felt that you should look at leadership and how caring the person is and that you should try and take notes on what they do in life and incorporate those things into your life making your future friends happy.
1 Beck
I am currently writing scholarship essays in the hope that I will be chosen to receive money from these organizations. When I am writing my essay I do not purposely try to incorporate different literary devices. Without trying to incorporate the literary devices I would say that I mostly use imagery and voice with a few similes. I believe that I use imagery in my writing to help my readers have a better understanding of the message that I am trying to convey. I enjoy trying to use similes because I feel like it keeps the readers involved and interested. There is one sentence in one of my essays that has a wonderful use of a simile. This sentence is “It was somewhat difficult to get twenty children transported to a different place and keep them quiet and stay in line, almost like herding little goblins, so there were time that I did end up having to yell to keep them in line.” This sentence has a simile in it by saying that transporting the twenty some children is like herding little goblins. I also have some good examples of imagery in my scholarship essays. I use imagery by explaining in detail about my experiences at the doctor's growing up. “Every time I go into the doctors to receive the shot I am due for, I just want to run out. I know that I need these shots to stay healthy, but I just hate shots. I don’t run though; I sit and wait for the nice nurse to call me back and give me my shot.” In these sentences it shows just how my experiences at the doctor’s went and what was going through my mind, and how my experiences have changed. I think that by showing scholarship committees all these different examples it will help them in their decision making to hopefully choose me to receive the scholarship that they are giving.
1 Klamm
I choose to do the scholarship essays. I have decided to touch on my volunteer hours to make myself not look like I am bragging but also bragging at the same time. I love volunteering and have a passion for volunteering so it is easy to write about. I have found that it is harder to talk about myself and remember what I have done. It is much easier to write about events or animals that I can research and find more information about. I have not done any literary devices because I do not think they are appropriate for some of the essays I am doing. Putting literary devices do not always work in scholarship essays. I cannot use literary devices like foreshadowing in an essay that wants you to talk about your recent accomplishments. I have found it hard to find topics to talk about for some of my essays. One essay in particular was about what does it mean to be you. I have a hard time finding something but eventually came up with hard working. I then talked about what I have done with volunteering, extracurricular activities, and work. It was hard however to act like I was not bragging but also include all that I was involved in. I am involved in a lot but it is hard to pick certain things to make it look like I am not extremely outgoing. If I was extremely outgoing I would not have time for school. In some essays I can only talk about my sport accomplishments and not my school accomplishments. They will know how hard I work in sports but not school. It is hard to act like an outgoing student without bragging about how outgoing you really are. Finding a happy medium is the hardest part about scholarships essays.
1 Hoffmann
To save word space, I tend to omit superfluous imagery and literary device in my scholarship essays, but I do have a few constructs that I am proud of. In one of my scholarship essays, I include the sentence, “At first we were apprehensive--we had never been sailing alone before--but before long we were both whooping and hollering, yelling ourselves hoarse like children on a Disneyland Roller Coaster.” This sentence makes me proud because I think it is a very clear and effective use of simile to enhance the imagery of the situation and drive home the point that we were having fun (as if we were at the “Happiest Place on Earth”). Another literary construct that is always satisfying to include in an essay is Anaphora. I find that asking the reader questions fulfils multiple purposes; I can effectively get my point across without being verbose, emphasize a point--both through the unexpected question mark and the break in phrasing that a question brings--or use it as an effective concluding device at the end of a paragraph. A great example, in my opinion, of using Anaphora as a concluding device is thus: “What goal can be more virtuous?” By asking the reader this question, I force them truly think about the question and ultimately (hopefully) come to the conclusion that no, no goal can be more virtuous.
A strategy to promote myself without bragging that I am proud of is found in the introduction of one of my essays. The question asks me to consider my extracurricular activities as I reflect on my biggest accomplishment, distinguishing characteristic, or particular aspiration that makes me deserving of a full-tuition scholarship. To begin my essay, I attempt nonchalantly discuss the numerous diverse activities I am involved with, but disguise the inherent “nudge-nudge” found therein by including the reader in my decision-making process. I say, “As a student involved in numerous diverse extracurricular activities, it is difficult for me to pick out one accomplishment that stands out the most to me,” then go on to list different activities in which I have participated. The goal is to put them out there without seeming like I’m saying “Look at all the stuff I do aren’t I so great?”
Headrick PD 1
I decided to do a series of scholarship essays versus the narrative essay solely based on that I can further use the essays and odds are my narrative would never be used again. While I do not use literary devices in my work, I see that is could help me get the scholarship. I do not know if their is a place for literary devices in scholarship essays since the essays are supposed to be short and to the point. With the use of literary devices in the essay, you can show off your sweet skills without flaunting that you have these sweet skills. That was also alliteration. Boom did it again. Alliteration makes the sentence flow and can sound pretty neat. A good alliteration should have more than two words in it but two is sufficient for the sake of this blog task. I used a symbol in my first essay. My first essay is about the woes with the BV fan van. For those who are out of touch with reality, the world is expensive. My essay is basically all the addition cost of the van the was not originally plan for. The van could be a symbol for my future life. Life is full of unplanned expensive whether it is breaking a leg or your car decides that it does not want to drive on. That is personification, another one. M the dreaded bragging about yourself. Many people have tried to boast without trying to be cocky. This is a world dilemma. This year I seen this done without much success. I think to be successful in this area, you need to stay away from I’s and me’s. I think it seems narcissistic and should be used sparingly. You can also say “My Yball team had a great year this year.” rather than “I led my team to the Yball championships”. This shows that you are a team player rather than arrogant. SPORTS
1 Quanbeck
Writing about oneself without coming off as self absorbed is challenging. For that matter, the endeavor of talking about oneself at all must be approached with caution. Scholarship essays rarely bear an interest in topics beyond the applicant themself; thus, the one must embark on the journey that is self advertisment. I do not feel I have mastered this challenge by any means. More likely than not I understate my accomplishments. When I write, I mostly just mention what I feel is relevant and do not delve too deeply into my accomplishments. For example, in my SDSU scholarship essay, they ask about academic interests. I wrote about programming as one of my interests. I could have written about my two summer internships at EROS working on programming projects but it did not seem terribly pertinent to the description of my interest. Another example is my videography work. I briefly mention that I have shot short films and that I have a business but did not delve into the specifics. I could have mentioned that one of the short films I shot won second place in a forty eight hour film competition spanning the midwest. I have not really used many literary devices in my scholarship essays. I must say, they have been fairly cut and dry. Given more time I would greatly enjoy writing a narrative essay and employing these literary tactics, however, I unfortunately have not had the luxury of time recently. Time is an interesting concept. While it continues to pass for all people around the world, some pay greater attention to it than others. Americans tend to be very time oriented. Just about every room you step into will have a clock present somewhere. Just about every American walks around with a phone in their pocket, constantly presenting the current time to its owner. Throughout the day we are constantly checking the time and planning things precisely. If someone is late they are shamed and seen in a more negative light. This is not the case for all though. In other regions, people are not concerned with specific time but rather process through their day living in the present.
1 Ellis
In my Narrative essay, the best literary device I have used so far is foreshadowing. This narrative is about my point of view when my father and brother got crushed by a semi truck in their car by the intersection of Aspen and Splitrock. One of the ways I use foreshadowing is when young Lara is playing with her new toys she knocks over two of the people figurines, symbolizing my father and brother and foreshadowing that the two family members have been harmed in some way. I plan to also write in the ending when I return home, to say a picked up the characters finally, and set them up correctly. Showing that in the end, my family was hurt, but not enough to kill them and that they are going to be alright. I also used a part in the narrative where my mother and I are arriving at the scene of the accident and we can’t park anywhere close because there are so many other cars parked. I also mention that I see a semi truck among the cars. Giving the foreshadowing of what had been the attacker against my family, yet young Lara has no idea, because she is to worried about her family’s condition. The entire into paragraph is a huge amount of foreshadowing. It talks about the definition of a tragedy and how they strike in mysterious ways. This will let the confused reader become more prepared for the disaster. Foreshadowing is my best literary device in this narrative essay because it helps the reader understand what is going on even though the main character is completely lost and helpless. It warns you of what is going to happen, a rendering car accident, and gives you an indication of what happened, and how it happened.
3 Mendoza
I chose to write numerous scholarship essays. During the summer, I had to write many personal statements as I wanted to get a head start on my college applications. I did not want to stress myself out during the school year so I thought this was the best approach. The personal statement questions I had to answer were quite challenging to me personally. Some questions consisted of “If you could meet a character from a book or a historical figure, who would it be and what would you ask them?” or “Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?” These questions were difficult to answer for me personally because I never put much thought into meeting a historical figure nor did I want to write about my personal challenges I have faced. I did end up writing about how the move from California to South Dakota affected not only my academics, but me mentally and socially. I wrote how I had to adapt to my surroundings, as even the language barrier was quite hard to overcome as I was quite used to talking in Spanish, yet here not many even know the language. I also wrote about my disfluency as I have a tendency of stuttering and lack in the ability to say specific words. Some strategies I used when writing these personal statements is not being too self-centered. I understand the entire purpose of a personal statement is to sell yourself to the admission board, but if too much self promotion is in your essay, that can lead to rejection. I tried to make my essays as personal as possible, as if it was compared to other applicants, they’d know that one is mine. I tried my best to make my paper as unique to myself, as possible. Hopefully, I will be admitted and all my efforts will prove to be worthy.
6 Johnke
As I write my scholarship essays, I truthfully do not usually think about adding literary devices in. It seems that different types pop up as it is the way I write. Alliterations and humor I enjoy adding to my writing, so normally that is the easiest part of writing an essay, and the structural component is the most challenging to set up. I am not quite sure why alliterations and humorous snippets are the easiest to add. Alliterations may be easier for me because I like the tongue twisters effect they give off and the unique sentences that are able to be created by using a continuous metaphor for a whole sentence. Humor is not as challenging to put in because by using parentheses and dashes it is simple to add and is a easy way to keep the reader for getting bored. The literary devices that are the most difficult for me to add in smoothly, I feel, are metaphors and similes. When I add those into my writing they seem very forced, so I believe that is something I really could focus on and improve on in the next few essays this semester. Similes and metaphors are extremely similar, with the exception of a few words, but the challenge in them is blending them into the subject matter in a suave manner.
The scholarships I have found are more creative in their manner, the one I am currently working on is about a political figure who exhibited political courage. I have decided to do Harry S. Truman and the difficult decision he made with the atomic bomb. This essay seems to be extremely tough because it is such a sensitive subject matter with much opinion base that humor and alliterations are difficult to do. Though the essay is tough it most definitely is worth the challenge.
house 3
I chose to write scholarship essays over the narrative essay because I haven't done diddlysquat when it comes to dealing with my future. The most I've done before this assignment was write a paper on how I didn't know what I was doing. I was hoping if I chose to write these; I would get something done. Never have I been so wrong. Instead of humbly bragging about myself I've spent more time browsing the Internet looking for scholarships to apply for then actually applying for them. My greatest asset to my writing is my passion and voice. I have had an unique writing style about me since I've started writing; it was just covered up by my horrendous grammar and spelling. I am a little better now. This passion only shows up when I am truly invested into something. I think it is pointless on doing something that doesn't enthrall you as a person. When I find something that makes me passionate, there's a fire lit underneath me. I want to make something worthwhile. When I care enough, I do make something worthwhile and I believe that sense of pride shows up in my work. Writing scholarships are like a narrative of your whole life. Instead of a snapshot of 5 hours or less as it is in the narrative you have a word limit to tell these people about your life. What made you so. Why you deserve this scholarship and also answering the prompt. I think that a person's sense of voice and passion portrayed in a scholarship outweighs everything else. These scholarships might be the only contact you have with the person giving you money. You have to show them that you are different then everyone else, that you care about changing the world, and that you will not throw their money away sleeping, banging, drinking and such. Nobody is forcing the people to give us money that's why you should honor these people in letting them get to know you. If you write a scholarship and then have to interview for it later on it would be a good thing that they can see the person they are talking to to the person they read about. My voice and passion that I can instill into my writings are my strongest assets that will hopefully win me a lots of money if when I decide to apply for these scholarships.
3 Coyle
In my scholarships essays, I am not using too many literary devices; but instead, I am being very persuasive with my writing. I have used one prompt to talk about how I could use the money, but I am so driven that even if I do not have the privilege of obtaining that specific scholarship, my drive to better myself will not go out. I am not sure if that is a good thing because they might take it as I am fine on my own. I was trying to get the point that I am going to be driven whether I got it or not. I am being persuasive by showing them how driven and passionate I am about extra schooling in college and making myself a better person than I am as that is, in fact, exactly who I am. I am a person who is driven and ready to take things to the next level and learn as much as I can throughout my career in schooling and in my extra curricular activities, such as music and speech. Another thing that I am doing in my scholarship essays is to make them long but not overdone. What I mean by that is I would like to make them long enough that I get my point across and in get it across well but not to choke them with overuse of being too fancy in my writings and confusing or boring them. I am trying to come across that I am a leader and that I am driven, but I do not want to brag about myself and give them opinions of myself. I attempt to just give them facts about myself so I do not have the option of bragging myself. I try to keep things strictly objective and not subjective because that does not do well with people who are trying to give money to others.
3 Sorenson
I am writing a narrative essay, rather than a scholarship essay. I have found that weaving the required literary devices into my paper is sometimes enjoyable and sometimes difficult. I have several onomatopoeias throughout my writing, and I am fairly proud of them. I use them at the beginning of my intro paragraph to try and grab the reader’s attention. The same onomatopoeia, (tap, tap, tap), is repeated throughout the first paragraph to try and provide some structure and add depth to the paper through repetition. I bring back the same onomatopoeia in a later paragraph, but it reflects a different emotion. In the first paragraph the literary device emotes impatience and anxiety, but in the later paragraph it represents an awakening. Imagery and alliteration are fairly easy to work into my paper. In order to write alliterations, I simply look for synonyms that start with the same letters and work with the context of my sentence. Imagery can easily be written by using creative words and being descriptive with my sentences. One literary device I am having trouble with is the metaphor. Currently, I have one in my essay: a piece of chocolate cake that represents a small piece of solace I can turn to in the tumultuous five hours my essay covers. I am struggling with making sure that connection can be made to someone who is reading my paper for the first time without over explaining it, which could cause it to not be a metaphor. I also struggle with adding appropriate allusions. I do not want my allusions to seem out of place and like I just added it in order to meet a requirement. I need to find places in my writing where they make sense and do not appear random. Overall, I am having fun writing this essay.
3 Olthoff
While trying to decide whether to write a narrative essay or an accumulation of scholarship essays, I figured that it would be better to practice selling myself without bragging, as this has more real world applications. Because college is expensive, I will end up writing a lot of these. The best literary devices used in my essay are undoubtedly imagery and symbolism, as I am trying my best to sound intelligent instead of arrogant by showing my skills and vocabulary without talking about them, which is comparable to a painter painting for somebody instead of talking about how good of a painter they are or a basketball player dunking in a dunk contest instead of telling people of how high they can jump and of how cool of dunks they can do. Probably the biggest challenge for me is the smaller essays. It is tough to keep words to a minimum while trying to get your point across. There is not much room for error in these small essays because you do not have a lot of words to make up for it. In a fifty word essay, one grammatical or spelling error could cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars, whereas in a five hundred word essay, a spelling or grammatical error can be expected. Another challenge in this essay is keeping each one as exciting and compelling as the one before it. As I trudge along trying to meet the requirement of 1700 words or more, I begin to just put words on the page. This leads to essays that are not worth any money and are a waste of time in a sense. To amend this, much editing and revising will be required. Who knows, maybe some time I will get one of these questions down the road and I will already have a stellar essay ready.
Casey 3
For this assignment I have decided that the most beneficial choice for me was to take a shot at a couple scholarship essays to increase my chances of obtaining a scholarship. I do not go out of my way to incorporate literary devices, although I should to enhance my writing. Looking back on my essays my use of imagery is substantial, though unintentional. One sentence using imagery was, “When I was younger I use to live on an acreage in Sioux Falls right off of I-90. The house was a two bedroom, one bath with chipping white paint and floor boards that needed to be replaced.” I think that the reason for my unintentional use of it is because of how I read. Although I am a slower reader I think more in depth about each sentence and end up getting lost in my own little world. I believe that using imagery really helps the reader relate to your story or experience more, in turn, assisting them in feeling like they know you a personal level which would help get a scholarship. Another literary device that I caught myself using was alliteration. An example of that in my essay would be, “It wasn’t big or beautiful, but it was home.” I believe that the use of alliteration grabs the attention of the reader and makes it a bit more fun to read. When writing about accomplishments or attributes while simultaneously and consciously attempting not to sound arrogant, my strategy is to add humor to make it apparent that I am not simply bragging. Another way to avoid sounding like I believe I am the best thing to have ever walked this Earth is to stick to factual information. If you are simply stating facts instead of opinions it is harder to come off as if you are bragging. There are a lot of variables that take part in being a good writer and I may have a long way to go but I have made some good progress in this class.
3 Wheeler
Some of my scholarship essays are not necessarily about my own achievements. For one of them, I just talk about someone whom I admire. I wrote about my friend Rachel, and how we’ve been friends for so long. I talked about how I have always looked up to her, and how we were inseparable. I talked about how we stuck together even on the very night I moved away, sleeping together on the bare floor because all the furniture was gone. So there wasn’t much “bragging” about myself in that one.
Another essay was about my favorite things (as in books, movies, etc.). That one did not leave much room for self promotion either, because in total honesty, I can be quite childlike when it comes to my favorites. A third essay was about how education has shaped me. That one was about myself, but I don’t think I was bragging. I talked about my love for knowledge, and how I consider my brain to be my best asset. However, I did not compare myself to other people in order to promote myself, at least not in a direct way. I talked about how I am the one my friends come to when they need help, even if I am not even in the class. I talked about how I will go through an entire year’s worth of old worksheets in order to find the one that will help. I am not sure if that counts as bragging though, because I’m not convinced that other people wouldn’t do the same.
My last essay was about a piece of art that has influenced me. Although I spoke about how the book I chose brought me closer to my teacher and provided an intellectual and emotional breakthrough, I don’t believe I was bragging. I am just telling it how it is. I think the reason I find it easier to not brag is because I don’t really think my accomplishments are necessarily any better than anyone else’s who may be applying. I feel that it would be foolish to attempt to brag about things in my essay. I also believe that their is a strong difference between boasting and bragging. Boasting, I feel, is simply promoting yourself in a way that shows your accomplishments. Bragging is more of an “I’m better than the rest because of _____” mentality. So my main strategy, in sum, is to speak about myself in a way that is factual and to the point, not overly exaggerated or pretentious.
3 Buteyn
I have chosen to write scholarship essays and in them I used a little bit of literary devices. On the other hand I mostly chose to stick to writing about why I should get the scholarship. I have tried not to come off as bragging about myself, but I am not sure how successful I have been. The literary devices are a great tool in making your essay sound better as I have come to realize. Within my essay I have tried to use more metaphors and analogies. Metaphors and analogies have come in handy whenever I did not know how to explain something in a way that others would understand. Another strategy I used while writing my essay was read it back to myself from the viewpoint of the person receiving the letters and deciding who gets the scholarship. As a way I could improve my writing in these scholarship essays I try to incorporate as much detail as I can. This will provide the reader with a better understanding of how emotions were felt by myself and everyone around me at that point in time. Detail also provides a base for expanding onto another literary device, which is imagery. Imagery is a great way to write because at some points the reader will feel like they were there with you and already know what emotions were flowing through everyone before they get to that part in your essay. Strategizing in these essays have become more important than in any other essay we wrote so far this year. This is because colleges let alone look at how good you are in school and athletics but they also take into account if you sound like you are bragging. They will use this as a way to say that they do not want you at their college because of how you were bragging in your essay.
3 Schroder
In choosing whether to write a narrative about five hours of my life or scholarship essays, I took into consideration which one would benefit me the most. I choose to write the seventeen hundred word scholarship essay, because I figured it would be for a good purpose, and it would also help get me started on the college scholarship process. I had not even began to think about writing scholarship essays; all I was worried about was applying to colleges and seeing if I got accepted first. This essay helped push me to begin this writing process that is extremely necessary to help me pay for college. As I am writing my essays, I have used a few literary devices, but probably not as many as I should. Using imagery is my strong point in my writing. Being descriptive helps the reader feel as if they were there in the moment with you; it grabs their complete attention. When I wrote about being most frustrated, I used the instance when I broke my nose. I tried to give as much detail so that the reader could see what I was going through. I want the colleges to understand how I came over such adversity through my strong and descriptive words. Throughout my essays, I try to show how my instances have helped shape me into who I am today. When I broke my nose, I stated that I was a hard worker and never gave up because I wanted to finish my season. I think this shows colleges that I am determined and that I will always work hard. School is something I will take seriously because I care about my life ahead of me. Also, when I told the story of me benefitting the little girls with cancer at a camp by painting their nails and giving them a spa day shows that I am generous and like to put other's needs before mine. In these essays, it is very important to put your best qualities out there and be descriptive about them. I gave the essays I have written so far a lot of time and thought because I want to be recognized by these colleges.
3 Roby
While writing my scholarship essays, the biggest struggle that I am having is not bragging in my essays, but also sounding interesting. I find that it is very easy to just list things that I am good at and all the things that I accomplished, but that is just bragging and it becomes boring. On the other hand, if I do not state any of my accomplishments or talents then I do not seem qualified for a scholarship. Trying to avoid this, I am explaining that I would not have these achievements if it were not for the support from my family and the excellent teachers that have taught me everything that I know. By acknowledging the people that have helped me as I was growing up and even now, I feel that it shows that I am grateful for their help and I am not bragging as though I did everything on my own. For me, the word limit on the essays are not a problem because I think that I am better at writing a couple of sentences with a lot of vivid description in them them writing pages and pages with each sentence being meaningful. In my longer essays I always find it hard to reach the page number requirements and I usually have to add some random sentences into each paragraph to make my essay longer. Once I add filler sentences I think that my essays become boring and redundant. I am working at being able to write several pages that do not become boring by the third paragraph. My favorite and to me the most persuasive essay that I have written is my response to the prompt, “How have you been molded?”. In that essay I have written about how I have been molded by my family and their constant support of me.
3 Myers
Instead of writing the five page narrative essay, I decided to create the scholarship essays. I thought that writing these essays would be smarter. Once I am done I will be able to actually use these essays to try to win some scholarships. I also felt it would be easier to meet a word limit instead of a certain page number and I was right. I have put a lot of time into these essay because I know they will be very important. For me, using different literary devices is extremely difficult, but thankful after looking back at my essay I was able to find some that I had used without knowing. For one of my essays I used a personal statement that I had previously used for a college application. In this essay, I used a metaphor about how my life can be compared to a boulder. Just like a boulder, there are certain event that have shape and change my life. This essay also has some symbolism because my dad owns his own landscaping company and works with huge rocks and boulders all the time. I included when boulder is placed in the perfect spot can be a reliable platform for a beautiful landscape. Another essay topic I wrote about was two men that both have a mental disability: Erik Lien and Scotty McGee. In this essay wrote about how I believe that they were two unsung heros in this town because of their personalities and continuous support for Brandon Valley athletics. In this essay, I used an analogy about how they are teachers. I talked about how even though they have this disability that sets that apart, they have taught me how to enjoy the simple things. From this essay I hope the reader can understand how big of an impact these two men have influenced my life.
3 Roegiers
I am writing scholarship essays, and have for the most part avoided using many literary devices. However, I have used some strategies to promote myself without being too boastful. In my first essay, on the topic of contributing to a cause that did not directly benefit me, I focused on the person that I helped, rather than focusing on what I had done. I also mentioned that the action I took was not necessarily difficult, even though some people would think reaching out to someone is quite difficult, and that it’s just something that all people should do. Trying my best to keep any bragging out of the essay, I trimmed a few parts out that seemed to be fairly boastful. In my second essay, about body image, I approached it in a unique way, starting in third person and then transitioning to first person in the second paragraph. I think this added an interesting twist and kept the essay entertaining. Instead of just explaining my thoughts on the topic, I also gave advice, making the essay become real. However, my second essay definitely needs some work with sentence flow and structure. In my third essay, on the topic of “what do you love?” I did not just choose one thing that I love and begin talking about it. Rather, in the first short paragraph, I listed the main things that I love in life and explained why. I chose to explain my love for music more in-depth because I feel like it is a more interesting topic than talking about why you love your family or friends. Colleges, as far as I know, look for creative people with different talents and passions, so by explaining my love for music, I am showing them another side of me. Throughout my essays I have been trying my best to write in a way that would make someone want to award me with a scholarship.
3Bachman
I decided to write scholarship essays instead of a narrative essay, as I believe that practice on scholarship essays will benefit me more in my life. Currently, I am writing these essays and I am trying to incorporate literary devices as best as I can. While at times I struggle to include a good variance of literary devices, I believe that the ones that I use best are descriptiveness and imagery. I generally am not good at using the literary devices that include making comparisons with others. I try to use imagery to have the reader picture what I am writing about, and feel what the topic is about. Giving good details and writing in a lifelike manner, helps readers picture the topic, and feel or relate to the topic. When I use imagery, I often use descriptive writing to help depict the image I am trying to portray. In one of my scholarship essay topics, I wrote about my struggle in a sports event that led to a new mindset for all the challenges I face. I used detailed thoughts to be descriptive about what I was feeling so the reader could tell the disappointment I had. Using descriptive adjectives, I wrote about how nervous I was for the event, in an attempt to have the reader gain a mental picture of when they were very nervous for something in their own life. In another essay topic, I wrote about one of my favorite books, and how it made me realize how stupid racism is. I tried to use descriptive writing in my writing so show how the book affected my thoughts toward racism and how dumb of a concept it is. While it is not always my strong point, I try to use literary devices as best as I can.
3 Poole
The literary device that I use the most is ethos. In my personal statements or in other scholarship essays, I like to tell the reader how hard of a worker I am. I held two jobs until just recently: the apple orchard (seasonal, and now closed for the year) and Woofs and Waves. On top of that, I am invested in music and therefore I am not only involved in school music groups but am as well in private lessons outside of school. One other aspect of ethos I use is to talk about any leadership roles I have obtained. In my 4-H club, I was Vice-President last year and have become President this year. I am one of two section leaders in my cello section. As well as ethos I also try my best to incorporate various different sentence structures and trying not to use the same words over and over again while avoiding disagreeable pompous. I use simple sentences. I use compound sentences and I sound good doing it. While complex may be tricky, I can write them in my sleep. Compound-complex, although difficult sometimes, I create with ease, and I never complain about it. Fragments, though...hmmm.
The previously stated examples are only a drop in the ocean of great ways to catch a reader’s interest. Perhaps in the future, I will learn how to better use symbolism and imagery. After all, no one is ever finished learning. The ability to look back at what I have once written and identify what I could have done better is an invaluable skill. The thing I like most about the infinitely large amount of literary devices there are to choose from is the uniqueness one can have in their specific combination. Perhaps one writer’s forte is to use alliteration, imagery, and pathos, while another’s could be symbolism and metaphors. This gives writers each their own individual style, which I believe is beautiful.
I am writing a Narrative essay on when I jumped out of my father's truck and the lesson I learned was that you mistakes are not real. Mistakes and successes both teach you something, but you learn more from mistakes. Some of the literary devices I used in my essays include allusions, descriptive language, zoomorphism, and symbolism.
One of my allusions compares Pepsi to the Fountain of Youth. The Fountain of Youth is a water source that is supposedly able to reverse the mark of time on those who drink it. The idea of such a thing was present in Japan, Rome, Polynesia, Spain and England. I use the allusion to describe how my father has such avarice for Pepsi.
The descriptive language is present throughout my entire essay. My goal was to make the readers picture it in their head with such clarity that they feel that they are there. I describe my father, his truck, myself, and, very specifically, a gravel road. I used as many powerful adjectives and adverbs as I could and I could still use more.
Zoomorphism is giving an object or human animalistic characteristics and that is what I used to describe my father. I used terms such as "crow", "screech", and "howl" to show a slight animosity towards him and make him seem less human.
I had the most trouble creating a symbol. I tried to set up my father's truck to be a symbol of my father's personality. I describe it as "just a bit worse for wear and unreflective of its contents" to say that both it and Charles looked a little bit rough on the outside but was far worse on the inside. I blatently state at the end of the descriptive that there were a lot of similarities between the truck and Charles, so hopefully the symbol comes across. I will continue to work on more literary devices in the two days I have left.
3 Barton
I chose to create an array of scholarship essays instead of a single narrative essay because in doing so I am killing two birds with one stone. Oh no, that was a cliché. Alright, I will reword that. I chose to create an array of scholarship essays instead of a single narrative essay because in doing so I knock out two brutes with one punch. (Yeah, that sounds good.) Not only do I complete an assignment for this class, but I also now have a bunch of words formulated into a passage that I can submit to earn money through scholarships. I do not use many literary devices in my scholarship writing, and if I do, it is probably on accident. So let’s talk about how I promote myself without bragging. To start off, I am going to share a story to give a little background. Two weeks ago, at this exact moment actually (huh, that’s weird), I was being interviewed for a scholarship at the school I plan on attending after high school. On the car ride down there my father and I were trying to think of ways that I could promote myself without bragging. I have never been at interviews (I’ve had two previous to this and never got a call after either of them), but this interview could lead to a $20,000 scholarship, so this was a big deal. My father brought up a good point: one of the reasons I am not a good interviewer is because I am a humble guy; I don’t like to self-promote. In other words, I would cheat myself out of interviews. If you were to interview someone else, but ask them about me, they would give much more tribute to me than I would ever give to myself. Fast forward to today; fortunately handwritten scholarships are different from interviews. With scholarship essays I have time to review my work and ensure that I am not playing myself.
7 Grode
Between the choice of writing a narrative about and short section of my life and writing scholarship essays, I chose the latter. In my essays, I did not go out of my way to include alliteration, metaphors, irony or much of any other literary devices while I was writing. Instead, my strengths in the essays come from sincerity in my thoughts and words I was writing. I did include some literary devices in my writing though, such as imagery, as well as some symbolism. I used imagery to attract the reader and to keep them interested. In my essays, it is evident that I used symbolism in many different ways. I tried to incorporate symbols such as sports and what I learned throughout my sports career to symbolize my desire for success, as well as my motivation to accomplish a goal, sometimes that being a common goal as team, like winning a state title in football. These symbols go beyond sports to show that I have a large work ethic and will work hard to accomplish my goals, no matter the obstacles standing in my way. It also shows that I can work well with others to reach a common goal, something that I will carry on later in life that will surely benefit me in various ways.. I included my failures into my essays as well to show that I can overcome my past weaknesses and failures. I can rise above what has happened in my past, and not dwell on my failures. I have believed in this my entire life, because there is no point in sulking in your own sorrow--no one will feel sorry for you. Instead, it is best to let your weaknesses build on your motivation and internal drive to do better and ultimately become successful.
6 Kluin
I choose to write a narrative essay over writing scholarship essays, not because I find scholarship essays unimportant (because they most certainly are), but because I enjoy creative writing more. Being able to tell a tale about oneself and one’s own life experiences with a little bit of embellishment on the side to make things interesting to read has been compelling to say the least. This has allowed me to use a variety of different literary devices such as alliteration, symbolism, allegories, and more. The most used literary device in my essay however has been imagery. The entirety of the story I am trying to tell comes from a memory that holds a certain significance in my life, and despite its’ seeming simplicity, allowed me an epiphany of my own and taught be to appreciate even the most trivial of circumstances, because they may mean the world to someone else. Within the narrative essay, the reader learns of the experience I had when my plans for the summer were suddenly changed when a surprise trip to my mom’s hometown is scheduled. No matter my objection to the matter, the decision was final and our little venture to the northern reaches of South Dakota had begun. While there, a drive around the countryside to visit the fields my Grandfather had farmed for years gave me a new perspective on the things I once thought to be meaningless in relation to my own life. I took for granted all the aspects of life that made other’s lives what they were. Due to the depths of the realization I had, I used a lot of imagery throughout the essay to describe what I was feeling and why I was feeling it. Proper use of imagery can build characterization and suspense and can give more purpose to an otherwise bland statement. I have done my best to add imagery where it will enhance and bring out the deeper, more meaningful parts of the memory I have transformed into a narrative essay.
McGee 6
I think that the best literary device that I used in my Scholarship essay writing is my imagery. I believe that really helping them imagine what you are writing will help you scholarship essay stand out from others essays. When I explain why I want to be a firefighter I really try to help them see my personality so that they can better understand why firefighting is a perfect job for me. I have not wrote a scholarship essay about me yet, but when I do I think it will be very important to make sure I use lots of imagery. The goal of a scholarship essay about oneself is to help the people reading the essay get a better understanding of the writer. Therefore the more imagery you use the better they can understand who you are as a person. And if they understand you better as a person then they will feel more connected to you and then they will be more likely to give the scholarship to you versus another person. I also try to put a little alliteration in my essays. I believe that using alliteration makes writing and reading an essay much more amusing, agreeable, and ambrosial. And as you just experienced it's a lot of fun, and it helps the sentence just flow. Its also important to use a little symbolism in your writing. Symbolism makes you writing better by adding depth and deeper meanings to your essay. I believe by using symbolism to connect something in you essay to something in the real world helps those who are reading your essay connect with it more. The more they connect the better attention they will pay to it while reading it and then it will have a bigger effect on them and therefore stand out against others essays.
Bogensberger 7
I decided to write scholarship essays because of the fact that I did not think I have had enough adventure in my life. I feel that it is easier for me to write when I have a word limit and when I am able to write on a variety of topics rather than write numerous pages on one topic. Also, getting these scholarship essays done will come in handy for when I am applying to colleges. Hopefully these essays will convince colleges to want me to be apart of their campus. When I am writing I do not think of using literary devices, I am mainly thinking about getting my point across and meeting the page requirement. Usually when I complete my essay, I will go back and attempt to insert some literary devices, in hopes of creating a more interesting and descriptive piece of writing. If the essay is five pages then it should at least be intriguing because the worst thing that could happen is to have someone be bored while reading your story. I believe the one literary device I am best at incorporating into my essays would be imagery. I can almost always find a place in my essay where a sentence needs more description. I will normally add a number of adjectives and sensory words in order for the reader to be able to imagine what is going on in my writing. I am also a big fan of using figurative language. Similes and alliterations are what I use most often because they add description by using comparison and contrast as well as keep the readers focused on a particular section of text. I would like to get better with utilizing irony and symbolism. I feel like symbolism really helps people grasp the concept of people's writings. Irony gets the readers to think and emphasizes a point in the story but you have to use it correctly in order for the reader to make the connection.
7Jensen
I am currently in the process of composing my scholarship essays in the desire to convince various colleges that I am the best of the best, without sounding too arrogant. In all honesty I have not done my best to incorporate literary devices. Though I have weaved in numerous examples in all of my experiences that include work, home, and life lessons with people who are dear to my heart. I believe I have done my best in making me sound determined, motivated, and having a drive that can not be tamed. Describing people who have made an immense impact on my life and how they have transformed into a completely different individual. I also went on to elaborate about why I regard learning to be so significant to any person wanting to be more intelligent. In the other essays I have started to write I went on to explain a specific attribute I believe makes me stand out compared to others. I went on to describe how I always accomplish anything I put my mind to and how I try my uttermost best in everything I do. I never try to slack in any one task I have on my plate. Another thing I want to write about in one of my essays is how I have been molded as a person based off of the people in my life. The people I have in my life have taught me multiple life lessons to make me a better me. I want to try to incorporate more symbolism and imagery so the reader can connect to the story more and be easier to comprehend. I believe the reader will understand what kind of person I am and what I represent with the essays I have chosen to write about.
6 Baldridge
In my scholarship essay, I do not have a whole lot of literary devices because I usually write more of just what comes into my head rather than focusing on how to use literary devices. I am definitely going to incorporate more of these things into my essay now that I am reminded that it should be. I personally feel like the best literary devices that I have in my essay is the device of imagery. I tend to be very descriptive and sometimes go into greater detail than I need to. In my essays I described my puppy very well and went into specific details about him, size, gender, breed, etc. Some strategies I used to promote myself was very subtle. I thought that it would be better if I low-key talked about my qualities rather than just boasting about them. I talked about how my dog connected me with nature, by doing this, I showed that I am a nature lover and I adore being in the outdoors and protecting the environment. I try my best not to litter and do what I can to help recycle. I also talked about how my best friend Madison helped me become a better person. In this essay, it was easy to talk about what she has done and this shows the qualities that I do have. In my essay about who is my biggest influence, i talked about my aunt and how great of a person she is. In the end, I talked about how she inspired me to be who I am. Based on context clues, this tells the school that I would be applying for that I am also a good person just like she is. I do think I need to talk a little more about myself and the qualities that I have and I also need to put in more literary devices to enhance my essays. Other than that, I think my essays are going just fine.
6Holter
Between writing a narrative essay or a scholarship essay, I chose to write the scholarship essay. I think writing these practice scholarship essays will better my chances for when I do apply for scholarships. One obstacle I am struggling with in the scholarship essay is making my essays interesting and enjoyable to read, without having too much words. I am trying my best to incorporate literary devices throughout my essay, but the ones I do put in sound too cheesy for a scholarship--so I omit them. In my scholarship essay, I am trying to sound older and more formal since I hope to attend that particular college in the future or get money for college, but some of the literary devices I have already put in do not enhance my chances. I want and hope any future colleges to see me as a young and intelligent adult, rather than a young and naive adult. Looking up literary devices, I found a couple of devices I hope to add into my essay. An allegory is a symbolism device to stand for something meaningful. Putting an allegory in my essay, specifically my who I admire essay, will give my essay a more meaningful feel. An allegory will help the reader understand what I am trying to explain in the particular essay. The second literary device I found is a flashback. If I put a flashback into any of my essays, it will aid the one who is reading it by giving them a more personal feel to my essay. A flashback will show a real life example from my life and it will assist them in connecting it to the rest of my essay. After writing this blog task, I want to add more literary devices (but not too much) to spice up my scholarships!
6 Eigenberg
Literary devices are difficult for me to master in my essay composition. It is more difficult when writing scholarship essays as well. I have used irony and metaphor in my essays, but to little extent. My metaphors a slight as to avoid being to wordy. The metaphors help describe what kind of person I am. I can compare myself to other things without directly bragging about myself. Irony brings in an aspect of humor for my scholarship essays. By using irony, I can explain what kind of things I have done and what I am really like in person. Other literary devices such as alliteration, symbolism, and analogy seem too wordy and unnecessary for for essay writing. When I am trying to fit 500 words into a 300 word essay, wordiness is not my friend. Being succinct and brief with my explanations is imperative for a concise, perfect essay that will allow me to be competitive with the other brilliant people the same age as I am with the same goals. The ACT has helped tremendously in my efforts of keeping my essays short. Conciseness is key on the English portion of the ACT test and I studied a year and a half to do my best on it. I am trying my hardest when it comes to avoiding the bragging or selfishness of a scholarship essay. I contribute my successes to those that taught me such as family, friends, and especially teachers. By mentioning them, I show that I understand how others have an effect on my everyday life and knowledge. Another way I stray from bragging is by glorifying the actual task that I am completing instead of glorifying me doing the task, if that makes sense. I elaborate on the task itself, and avoid talking about myself doing the task. The task, such as volunteering, is the good thing in the situation, not myself.
6 Steffel
The use of literary devices is a blatant addition in essays but only to a certain extent. I truly believe that while they may help and essay it is a poor choice to alter your writing primarily to include a source that is neither essential nor inessential. Especially in the case of writing for scholarships and admissions while you do want to portray a sense of literary maturity, I feel that it is a mistake to alter your natural writing. Your choice of words and passive voice in writing is unique to you and no one else and the ability to add in literary devices while writing at a subconscious level is something that must be practiced and mastered.
The proficiency of one should not be altered to satisfy the voice of another. Let the way you speak influence them on a larger scale and hope that your use of grammatical additions is sufficient and the work you have included into developing that style rightfully so. I have included some into my essay but not by inclusion after the fact. I hope to let what I truly feel be expressed in the voice that appeals to what I am saying. Alliteration to me is one of the more interesting things to include in writing which I hope to add to an essay, It brings a rhythm throughout that can be picked up and played upon at any time. You want to make a connection with your writer and yes literary devices our amongst the best ways to do that. Your writing should be honest and work to your voice but they should also appeal to the audience you are writing to. And while the essays for scholarships and admissions should remain semi formal the idea that one can not have a little fun in their writing is simply preposterous. Let the melody flow and the lines glaze easily off the metaphorical tongue of the mind.
6 Beckman
I am writing scholarship essays, and though I am not making literary devices my main priority, they are still present. I have in my personal statement a euphemism about finances and an alliteration of the gentle giant Jeremy Risty. However, I am focusing more on my strategies to promote myself to the scholarship boards without bragging. I am trying to come off as a genuine person who will continue on with my education and be a good example for them in the future. For background purposes, you must brag about yourself a little bit. The key is to not do it too much. The people who pick the scholars want to know if they are a good student or not. Do they do well in class? Theses are things they want to know, so you must answer that.
I am trying to come off as easy going by talking about how I help people with my volunteering. Also trying to come off as relatable is something that I am trying to succeed with. I have stories about finances and my grandma being in the hospital. I hope that these personal situations help those people understand my circumstances. My word choice is not too arrogant, but not too shy at the same time. I choose specific words to make me sound smart, yet also sound approachable all while being cordial. My hope is that by saying specific things about myself and about what I do, I will have made an impression on the people choosing the scholars. I want to leave them with the impression that I am a good person who would do well in the future. By me doing well and supporting them in the future, my success would also make their scholarship program seem more beneficial to others.
6 Lindemann
I am an indecisive little gremlin and so I have started and halfway-completed both of these essay prompts. I am writing a narrative essay about this election and how hearing the results has affected me as a person, because this is the first time that I truly feel that I am responsible for protecting those around me who may be at risk during this time. I am also writing scholarship essays because many of the prompts are incredibly interesting and, dare I say it, fun. I enjoy challenging myself to be as concise yet vivid as possible in my writing, and scholarship essays are a wonderful exercise in patience and editing. The narrative essay caters to my creative passions, as I am expressing myself and creating a story for the reader to follow. The scholarship essays are filling my desire that I am actually doing something to prepare myself for college, so I believe I will focus mainly on these essays. I think my main literary devices I use are irony and imagery. If a reader cannot perfectly visualize a story I am telling, I consider it a failure. I also think irony is a good device to use because it adds a personal touch and unique voice to my writing. I am having trouble properly “selling” myself to these schools because I feel there is not a lot to sell; no experience is truly unique and I worry that anything I write will be trite and boring to those reading, so I am hesitant to continue my writing. My one quality I am choosing to talk about is my passion. I am almost never half hearted about anything (except cleaning my room) and I think this shows great drive and initiative on my part. I hope that colleges will agree.
6 Reinschmidt
I chose to write essays in order to persuade colleges to choose me for their scholarships. I do not usually incorporate many literary devices into my writing, though sometimes they appear without me noticing. Many of the essays that I have chosen to write consist heavily of facts about my life and my story, producing a challenge to include these devices. Within my essays, I believe that my voice is evident, further personalizing my essay and giving the universities a sense of who I am as a person, and how I became the way that I am today. I believe that the schools truly care about your personality and what elements that accepting you could bring to their campuses. Though I cannot point out times that I specifically thought about inserting literary devices, I caught myself unintentionally using metaphors and similes to better describe what a leader is and how important their position can be. I also used imagery to depict scenarios in the reader’s head and hopefully sway their favor to me. Writing about my childhood was fun for me because I was able to flashback to many years ago and revisit precious memories. I tell my story in a way that allows them to imagine what it was like to grow up with a dad in the military or grow up in multiple places. When writing about the role of a team, I described what it would be like to be the star player as well as the benchwarmer, giving a sense of the feelings that each get every game day. Writing about sports comes easily to me because I have been involved in and around them for my entire life, so I believe it provides an insight to who I am as well. These universities find it of the utmost importance to discover your personality.
6 Loosbrock
Literary devices are exceptional tools to transform words into literature. They should be used often in storytelling, but they are more difficult to use in short, informative essay prompts. Despite this, I attempted to use literary devices on multiple occasions. For instance, I used personification to describe my favourite word, conquistador, as conquering my vocabulary. This played well into the sentence by creating parallelism; I explained that conquistadors conquered distant lands and now the word we use to describe these conquerors has conquered my vocabulary. Parallelism is probably the simplest method for inclusion of literary techniques within a succinct essay. In addition, I used hyperboles to exaggerate conditions or events. This exaggeration enables a more straight forward essay that leaves little doubt. I enjoy the word conquistador, but is it truly my favourite? Maybe it is. Maybe it's kerfuffle. Or conundrum. Maybe it's hullabaloo. Or Srivijaya. I guess I have never really thought of it. The essay would not have been as good if I would have not asserted a stance and then supported it. If I would have stated multiple words, the essay would have made me seem indecisive. Creating absolutes enables a direct approach that makes essays much more interesting and decisive. Besides literary devices, I had difficulty writing about myself without sounding arrogant. There is a very fine margin between being humbly honest and being a narcissistic prick. I find it difficult to assert a stance of my importance to a group without coming off arrogant. It is much simpler to state these stances in person so that you can convey your emotions and humility. Through writing, you lose many non-vocal elements that convey you not being an arrogant individual. Me stating that I was the leader of my soccer team and the reason that we stayed competitive in every game may in fact be true, but in writing it sounds a lot like I think I am the greatest. I encountered multiple prompts that wanted me to discuss community obstacles that I have overcome. As a white man from Brandon, SD, I have very little to complain about; few, if any, obstacles were put in my way from my surroundings or community. These topics are nearly impossible for me to write about without sounding like a whining loser who has no idea just how easy my life is compared to others’ lives.
7 Mork
When given the choice of writing a narrative essay and scholarship essays I chose to write scholarship essays. I have written a total of five scholarship essays now and I do not think I am doing an exceptional job at using literary devices. In my first essay I wrote about leadership. In this essay I started off by introducing what I think are characteristics of a leader. In this essay I promote myself by explaining the roles that I have taken in order to develop my leadership qualities. I avoid bragging by explaining experiences that I have been through. My next essay is about a person I admire. I chose to write about my grandma. In this essay I used imagery to describe my grandma. My next essay is about volunteering. I use personification when saying that, “actions speak.” I do not use a lot of other literary devices in this essay again, but I promote myself without bragging by explaining my experiences and how they have affected my life. My next two essays are about the role I take when I am part of a team and what superhero I would chose to be if I was given a day to be any superhero. In my essay about the role I take when I am a part of a team I promote myself by stating what my teammates expect out of me at practice and what they would say about me. Again I used the literary device of imagery when I wrote about volunteering. I tried to create feelings in the reader by describing a few volunteer atmospheres I have experienced. I have started a sixth essay about what ice cream flavor I would be if I was ice cream. Although I haven’t gotten too far on that essay, I have already included the a simile. All in all I plan to either go back through my essays and look to add more literary devices if I see fit, or to focus on trying to incorporate more literary devices in my following scholarship essays.
1 Harvison
I chose to write a scholarship essay, in the hope of trying to reduce the ever growing cost of college, while also being able to both complete this assignment. However, my essay does mean a lot to myself and my family. I am writing an essay about the effects Alzheimers on my own life as well as my families, and how damaging of a disease it can be. Although this essay has brought many tears to my family’s eyes, it has been a struggle to find the right words to describe my grandma. Since the people reading this essay will have never met myself or my grandma. It is all about showing that she was a real person and that her life mattered to us all. I want the reader to picture being at our family Christmases or being with us at the nursing home. I want them to understand what a lovely person she was to all around her. Imagery is the key to this scholarship. I have never been great at describing things very well, so this is such a challenge for me to manage that while also getting the emotions behind the words.The style of this essay contains many different types of sentence structure as I am trying to provide subtle emphasis to certain parts of stories involved. I find myself using symbolism in order to provide an insight into the story. Using symbols such as pie, wedding rings, and old tvs has helped me bring this essay much farther. Thankfully, this is not the type of scholarship essay that requires me to brag about myself, because that is not my personality, but rather I am able to tell the story of a wonderful life that was cute too short. I look forward to seeing the responses I will get after submitting this piece.
7 Scherb
I chose to do scholarship essays for this assignment instead of the narrative. I felt that it gave me a good excuse to work towards these scholarships and to get myself writing some high quality essays to hopefully get myself some money for college. The big essay that I am writing on is for an essay contest done by the National WW2 museum down in New Orleans. This essay is a response to a quote by Elie Wiesel that you can either agree or disagree with and explain your position based on your life experiences and growing up in the 21st century. Since I really enjoy history and looking into the past, this essay has been pretty easy to write for me, but it certainly needs some polishing to say the least. Personally in my scholarship writings, I try to avoid using literary devices, as I feel a scholarship essay needs to be concise, but very thorough in answering the question. You need to pack as much information as you possibly can in often times a very short amount of space. I think that using literary devices takes away from the space I could be using to better answer the question or topic of the scholarship essay and explain my position to whoever it is that judges their merit. I personally find it very hard to try and brag myself up without sounding cocky or conceited. I don’t really feel that I have a lot of things that I can brag about myself to people who are issuing scholarships or admissions to colleges. But, with the things that I am good at, I try to subtly work them into my writing so that people think highly of my abilities even if I don’t blatantly say that throughout my essays. Bragging is a hard thing for me when it comes to serious things, even though I have no issue jokingly talking myself up.
7 Livingston P
Literary devices are very important to writing and a lot to a composition piece. I do not think I use them nearly as much as I should. Alliteration is a literary device that is the repeating of a sound, letter, or at the beginning of a word and or a phrase. A good time I used alliteration in my scholarship essays was in my essay for Dish TV where the prompt was to explain why watching athletic events on TV live is better than watching the sports if they are DVR’d. I used alliteration when I said,”each game is different; different teams, different players, and different strategies.” Another literary device I like to use is Anastrophe, where you put the verb before the noun. “Helping to prevent infections and diseases is another way you could care for your feet.” That is how I used an anastrophe in my essay about why proper foot care is important. A literary device all writing contains is diction. Diction is the tone or way something is written. In a lot of the essays I am writing I am trying to maintain a formal tone that hopefully can relate to the reader. I tried to make the reader relate in my Dish TV essay where I was trying to create the, “Oh yes, I hate when that happens.” moment. To do that I tried using imagery, perhaps the most effective of devices. Another example of using imagery is a quote I included in my essay about nature that put the image of nature in your head. I used this because the essay prompt was talking about why people should use green household cleaners. I am yet to write an essay about myself, so I have not encountered the issue about writing about myself without bragging.
7 Wickersham
In my essay about whether or not I consider myself a leader, I try to use pathos as a literary device. Human emotion is strong, and I think it is possibly the strongest literary device you can utilize in an essay. I talk about how I was a leader and team captain on the football team and all the hardships and tasks that a leader has to face. A leader must step in and be bold when times are tough, when there are off the field issues, and get the team ready to go on Friday nights. I try to demonstrate my boldness with an example of my leadership on the football team. Then I continue to build off that and talk about my season-ending injury. I try to use pathos and make them feel emotional for me and feel saddened about me not being able to play in the championship game. But rather than making a sad, soppy story about my injury, I use it to show my leadership even when I cannot play. I talk about leading the team in other ways rather than playing like: staying positive, preparing my teammates as best I can for the championship game, and keeping practices going smooth. I also talk about my leadership in the offseason (along with the other senior leaders). I talk about all the offseason training I did such as lifting, running, footwork, etc. I show how much my leadership has meant to this team and even though I could not play, I still felt I was a leader on the team and helped this team achieve our goal in making it to the State Championship. I try and use pathos as an emotion that can cause the reader to feel almost inspired and saddened at the same time.
7 Dybdahl
Instead of writing a narrative essay, I decided to write scholarships essays. While writing my scholarship essays, I have tried to incorporate literary devices as best as I can. I am trying to write about myself in a way that would make colleges want me to come to their school. For me, my biggest struggle is knowing how much detail I need to include in each of my essays. I am trying to include imagery in my essays, but I struggle with being too detailed. This makes my essays too long and go over the word limit. To fix my problem, I have been only including information about me that is needed for the topic that I am writing about. In my essay about my biggest influence in life, I talked about my sister Kaity. I tried to create an image of my sister so the reader could understand who I was talking about. I also tried to do the same thing while writing my essay about a person I admire. I wrote about my Mom and I included all her attributes that make me admire her. I have found a lot of topics to write about. One that I am currently working on is what I think my purpose in life is, and how I think I am going to achieve it. I think this is a good topic for me to write about because I can include many literary devices in the essay to make it become a good essay. I am going to try to include imagery in my essay, and try to make the reader feel as if they know me really well. To do this I am going to talk highly of myself, but not brag. I am also going to try to include flashback in my essay. I will try to relate things into my past to how I have become the person that I am today. I am going to focus a lot on adding literary devices into my essays. I feel that including literary devices in my essay will make them it stick out among the other applicants essays.
7 Else
I feel like I have used a few literary devices in my scholarship essays, but one stands out to me the most. All of my short scholarship essays are essentially one large hyperbole. A hyperbole is used to exaggerate something. In each of my college scholarship essays, I am trying to exaggerate the small things that I do--such as South Dakota All State Choir and teaching Sunday School at my church--seem like they are huge accomplishments and amazing feats. I believe that the college scholarship decision committee. In my essays themselves, I have enjoyed using simple literary devices such as similes, metaphors, and imagery. I have also used an extensive amount of pathos. Pathos statements help me convince the scholarship search committee to choose my essay by using pity and making them think about why I need the scholarship more than the other applicants. My parents are not planning to assist in paying for my college, so I have explained in my personal letter (required for one of my scholarships) that any scholarship that I receive will help me not be burdened with debt after I graduate. I have also found a new love for new forms of grammar in this essay. So far, I have changed up my sentence structures to include compound and complex sentences, along with simple sentences. I have also enjoyed using colons, dashes, semicolons, and parentheses. I have enjoyed showing off my writing skills in my essays, but I know that I must be careful choosing literary devices. If I use to few literary devices, my essay will look like complete and utter garbage; however, if I use to many literary devices, my essay will look like I tried too hard and it may become difficult to follow along with. There is a happy-medium in using literary and grammatical devices, and I think that my essays showcase this balance.
6 Waltner
Coming up with a 5 hour time period in my life to narrate for 5 pages was very difficult for me. And if coming up with the topic was hard, I assumed writing it would be even worse. Therefore I chose to write scholarship essays which seemed to be more logical anyways. I should start applying for scholarships, which I haven't yet, so it will force me to do so. As I look back at the essays I have been composing, I noticed I do not use many literary devices in my writing. Although one that I did use a lot in one of my essays was imagery. The topic of the essay was, “Write about a time you faced a challenge, failing or succeeding, how did you become a better person because of it?” I wrote about the semifinal game of my junior year and how the loss helped me become a better player and person in the end. In this i used examples of imagery to help the reader get the feel of the game and the atmosphere.
Other than a small portion of imagery I did not attempt to use many literary devices in my scholarship essays. I felt that it was more important to just flat out tell my story. To make the reader understand my life and all my accomplishments. Also while doing this it is important to promote myself, but without bragging. In order to do this I talked about the important traits I obtain rather than than just bragging about all my accomplishments. Rather than bragging about my 4.0 I want to tell the reader about the traits that got me to where I am today, like having a hard work ethic, and being a responsible student. And by doing this I can better explain my personality, without bragging or sounding arrogant.
6 Clemenson
During these past couple weeks, I have been working on my scholarship essays, and I have done little to no conscious effort into adding literary devices to my essay. However, one thing I feel I do a decent job of during my essays is using descriptive words that allow for good imagery. This helps allow the reader to get a good understanding of what is going on in my essay and allows for me to separate myself from the rest of the pool. I have chosen to write six different essays that best show my skills as a writer. The hardest thing for me to do in each of these essays has been finding a topic that I can truly discuss with great levels of depthness, but also staying under the word count. Reading through a lot of potential essay prompts I find it difficult to find ones that intrigue me enough that I can talk about well. Another hard task in writing these essays has been making sure I stay humble throughout the essays. A couple of the essays I have written about have been about achievements and work; as a result, it has been hard to make sure what I am saying should be said and makes me unique, but is not just me showing off and bragging about my successes. However, it is essential to separate yourself from the rest of the pack if you want to get the scholarship, but trying to hard just sounds like you are arrogant and would be a bad addition to a campus or recipient of money. Throughout my essays, I try to avoid just stating all of these accolades I have received, but also discuss the emotions about being successful and how much of an honor it has been to receive some of the awards. By doing so, I am trying to prove I would be a valuable person to the school or scholarship, but I am modest about what I have done.
7 Scholten
I have decided to the scholarship essay instead of the narrative essay. Many colleges require you to write essays for applications, scholarships and many other things and I wanted to get some of these essays done instead of waiting until the last minute to do them. I could not use all the literary devices but I found a way to fit symbolism and similes in my essay. Symbolism is one literary device that I used in one of my essays. Symbolism is symbolizing one thing to another. This is my best literary device because it is the only device I have used so far in my essay. I symbolized my life to a tree and went through all the different parts of the tree and what part of the tree best describes what I like. Similes and symbolism went hand in hand in my case because I used how my life was like a tree. Other than symbolism and similes I feel it was extremely hard to put alliteration, imagery, irony, analogy, and metaphors in my essay. I used many strategies to promote myself instead of using literary devices. One challenge I have been having with this essay is the smaller essays. I have been struggling with shortening my essays to the maximum word count. I am trying to use descriptive words and longer sentences but in these smaller essays you need to be concise. Another problem I am having is with choosing the right words to say without boasting. You can’t come off as cocky or arrogant to colleges because they will not pick you if you are. I am trying to use team accomplishments and I am trying to be grateful for my successes. I know I wouldn’t be here without my teammates, coaches, parents, and teachers and my success is because of them. I am happy to be able to get my scholarships done right now and not stress later about them.
1 Benitez
Literary devices are items in sentences that tend to be excellent for essays. These devices add character to your essays and make them pop out. I am writing both a scholarship essay and a narrative essay. In the scholarship I am talking about what it would take to consider myself a success in 30 years. I use personification, stating that education helps “push” the world forward. Since education is not a physical thing and thus can’t actually push the world this is a personification for the idea that education in people helps everyone on the earth advance as a society. Another part of my essay I state that I wish to have a group of friends when I am an adult that we hang out almost everyday like sitcoms. This I believe is not only a simile but also imagery. Me describing this group of friends like the sitcoms that most have seen like Friends, Big Bang Theory, and How I Met your Mother. In my narrative, I am writing about the night my mom passed away and the morning after and what I thought during it. In this essay I use imagery to show how her health had deteriorated by explaining it thoroughly. Personification was present in this essay as well. I was driving to see my mom and all the stoplights let me go basically stating that the stoplights were green when I arrived at them. As well I later state that my dog wanted to talk to me, this obviously could not happen as dogs can’t talk. Then I use a metaphor to compare myself to a kid in that I sat on the stairs and stared through the bannister. Literary devices are very strong items in essays and can help your reader understand what you meant. If you can you should always try to incorporate literary devices to improve your essays.
1Reese
Throughout most of my scholarship essays I do not really fell the ambition to pull out those literary devices because most of them I can not write naturally I have to think about it for a while for it to work with what I am trying to accomplish in the essay. What I tend to lean towards a little more, is trying to showing what I have experienced and what I have accomplished thus far in my life. The stories are what really pull my essays together and make them better and more enjoyable to read, not the literary devices. I have always struggled with adding them into my writing so I have figured other ways to keep my essays up to par with others. A technique that I have tried to develop in my writing is giving a familiar setting or situation that has happened to me to which the reader can connect and feel more attached to my writing. Also, writing these scholarship essays has been easier for me because having the freedom to write in a narrative way is very powerful. It gives you the freedom to do many things with your writing, like talk about your experiences and your life, and let's be honest, most people enjoy sharing past experiences, assuming they are pleasant. All of this would in return would boost my likelihood of being chosen for a scholarship or even result in me getting a better grade, which never hurts. I can not lie, english has never been my strong suit in school but I have grown founder over the years as we are required to write more papers and documents. It gives me as student the required practice to develop my skills for later times when the will be needed, such as college or possibly for jobs in the future.
6 Berg
I’ve found it to be fairly difficult to incorporate literary devices into the more deliberate scholarship essays, unless I take the necessary time to think hard about them, and specifically where they belong in my essays. In the scholarship essays I have chosen to write, I am not going out of my way to include literary devices--alliteration, similes, metaphors, analogies, ironies, and the like. Instead, I am aiming at showing scholarship committees and college application committees why I am the best choice out of their entire pool of applicants. However, I know that those who are competing for the same scholarships as myself are also very qualified in their own ways. Therefore, I must set myself apart, not by bragging and claiming how I am “more qualified,” but stating how everything in my life has shaped me into the person they want, and showing how exactly this has been done. For scholarship essays, stepping outside of the “norm” and setting yourself apart is essential in order to even be considered as a finalist, let alone as the recipient of that specific scholarship. Word choice is a pretty key aspect of these essays as well, because you are limited to only a certain number of words (depending on the essay and the topic, possibly anywhere from 50 to several hundred words), and it is typically difficult to go through and chose only the best words to include. They must captivate the reader, and try to allow them to feel how you feel, without sounding too wordy and grandiose. Clearly elaborating the point and reasoning while displaying intelligence, skill, and emotion becomes a challenge fairly soon into the writing process of these various essays. For the next few days, I will continue trying to and add interesting factors to all of my scholarship essays, hoping for the positive result everyone is aiming for.
Powell 1
For this weeks assignment, I chose to undertake the narrative. I have always thought about writing a story (albeit fiction) and the challenge of mixing writing elements to bring it to life was too much to resist. I decided to tell the story of my first day here at Brandon Valley. This story is very emotional, so keeping the readers in touch with my feelings has been a significant challenge. I used a clever flashback layout where I told the story of before my first cross country practice and then after, skipping the actual practice but coming back to it later as an internal reflection. I believe this tactic will produce significant tension in the story as my first day is slowly unveiled. Throughout the piece, I vary my sentence structure, moving from sentences as simple as “This was it” to “Despite a workout that trudged through the depths of Hell, I was happy… a feeling I hadn’t had for longer than I could remember.” However, my initial work is still fairly plain and could use significant revising. In the first paragraph, I begin with a long string of natural themes, slowly progressing into my thoughts. By using a mix of personification and imagery, I accurately depict the mixed emotions going through my head and hope to connect back to the theme of nature in the actual practice paragraph. Later in the story, I confront my feelings for my first crush in Brandon, using imagery and dialogue as the backbone of the section. I have an excellent memory, so producing vivid pieces of imagery is easy for me, but personifying characters has become more of a struggle for me. My crush paragraph falls into a borderline cliche with my description of her following the lines of what seems like every teen romance novel. Hopefully, through viewing my strengths (structure and imagery) and weaknesses (personifying characters), I will become a better writer and maybe… someday… write that book I’ve always dreamed about.
7 Tingle
For this essay assignment, I am using 5 essay prompts from college applications and one essay prompt for a scholarship application. In my essays, I worked with Mr. C numerous times outside of class, and he really stressed my tendency to start my sentences the same way. He encouraged me to look at the “Art of Styling Sentences” document and incorporate some of the ideas in my essay. My sentence structure has improved, along with my overall comfortability with writing essays.
One of my essays talks about how I will explore my intellectual and academic interests at a certain college. I first start off my essay by describing how I want to major in biology, attend a medical school, and become a surgeon. In order for someone to be a surgeon, they must go through a rigorous education that includes research at an institute, volunteering/interning at hospitals, performing hands-on experience in the labs, and creating publications. I described how I want to be a surgeon because the medical field interests me, and I love empowering others. I tried to show how I am a high goal setter without coming off as arrogant.
My next essay prompt is for a scholarship. In order to apply for this scholarship, I must write about what I would say to someone who thinks “education doesn’t matter, or that college is a waste of time and money.” I am pursuing such a challenging career that requires approximately twelve years of schooling, avoiding a college education seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I believe earning a college degree opens the door for more career opportunities, room for internal personal growth, enhanced work ethic, and overall respect in our society. In my essay, I try make my opinions sound less biased and more factual, by avoiding words like “I think” or anything else starting with “i”. This essay prompt was not difficult for me to write about. I was raised in a family where everyone went to college, and it was heavily frowned upon to start your career with only a high school degree.
6 Forster
When beginning this essay assignment and choosing between composing either a narrative or a multitude of scholarship essays, I chose to write scholarship essays. I made the decision to write scholarship essays because I believe it would be productive, both for this class and for college applications. In today’s world, a college education comes with a lofty price tag. While I desire to earn higher education, I do not wish to drown myself in debt for the rest of my life. I am hoping to alleviate this burden by applying to as many privately funded scholarships as possible. This benefit made the choice rather easy - this way I can use class time to earn money for college next year. I have already met the minimum word count of 1700 and as I read through my essays, I do not find an overwhelming amount of literary devices in my writing. On a few occasions, I used alliteration; for example, “overcome that obstacle not once” and “competitive and caring character”. Both of these sentences help to elicit the reader’s interest and hopefully incline them to offer me a scholarship. Other than these instances, I did not use many literary devices, at least not on purpose. If I were to add many more literary devices, it may distract from my essays and exceed word limits. When composing scholarship essays, it is difficult to come across as confident, but not as a braggart. I believe that my essays explain my accomplishments and character without making me seem conceited. In my scholarship essays, rather than outlining my accomplishments and giving credit to myself, I worked to credit my family, mentors, and friends. I hope that the administrators who will read my essays see this as a positive. I believe it helps my essays to not sound conceited. I look forward to seeing the results of these essays over the next few months.
7 E Livingston
When choosing whether I wanted to write a narrative or scholarship essays, I thought that scholarship essays would be more practical for the next few months. It is very important to have well written scholarship essays because they determine how much financial aid that you will get, or quite possibly if you will get into that particular college. I tried not to use large amounts of literary devices because scholarship essays are very word limited. One of the literary devices that I did use in my essays, is theme. All of the essays that I have written so far each have their own specific theme. My first one is based around music. My whole essay was about how I got into music, and how it has impacted me. I also used flashbacks in this essay in order to explain the effects of the music that I have played in the past. I tried to incorporate as much imagery that I could, though, because I think it makes the essay more vivid, and it’s more interesting to read. Although I do use some literary devices in order to keep my essays interesting, I don’t use a ton. I don’t use a whole lot of literary devices because my word count is limited, and sometimes those devices can just be added fluff to essays, which would waste precious words that I could be using. In my essays, I try my best to not brag. I did this by mentioning a lot of my successes to the people and experiences that I have gone through. I mention some of my family members and teachers that have helped me. I try to focus on me, but not necessarily directly to what I did myself. I hope that some of the word choice and conciseness that I use in my essays will make them seem more appealing to the people who will be reading them.
Blue 7
As far as literary devices in my scholarship essays, I have a good start on using these devices throughout my writing. However, I could definitely add more to make my writing the best it can be. I feel as though I demonstrate a great use of imagery in my essays. However, playful language, such as metaphors and alliterations, could be placed in some of the essays I was writing. Playful language and literary devices do not always have a place in certain scholarship essays. Some topics require more straightforward information to describe yourself, rather than symbolism and irony. This tactic must be balanced by narrating your successes without coming off as too cocky, or too confident.
Examples of literary devices in my essay include a few in the essay prompt, “The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”. Near the beginning of the essay I refer to myself in the third person to give an outsider’s view. I call myself a “skinny young freshman”. Later I use personification to describe how my “confidence soared”, this provides imagery about how my spirits were uplifted at this point in my tennis match. Also, I use imagery later in the essay when I talk about my face after I lose a devastating match. My “face filled with fears” I could not comprehend the match I just lost. In another prompt I discuss the building of my bridge. The prompt asks to describe an imaginative situation when someone said it could not be done. However, I chose to take literal sense of the phrase because many people did not believe the bridge could be built. I began this essay by stating “My dad’s eyes told me everything”. This statement puts an image in my reader’s head. It also makes them curious about what they will end up reading in this scholarship essay.
3 Moelter
Using literary devices is sometimes hard for me to work into my writing, but I did however use one simile; that I purposely added into one of my scholarship essays because it seemed to really summarize the topic I was talking about. The simile was “The reason I am shooting towards medical school is because my parents have always taught me to aim for the moon and if you miss at least you will land among the stars; to me, the moon is like medical school and if I miss the moon, or find a better fitting job instead of going to medical school, then at least I will land among the stars. (In other words, the stars would be the other tremendous careers that I could choose that did not require going to medical school.)”. I really like this simile and I feel that it has helped me to get my point across about my subject. As I am going through this essay it has been fun to be able to write about me but I cannot tell if I am using the best words to describe who I truly am. While trying to fully promote myself I have tried to stay away from bragging as much as possible, because no one likes someone who is full of themselves. To me, most colleges are looking for someone who truly cares about their grades and their future to accept them into the colleges. Scholarships are even harder than writing essays to get accepted into a college. Colleges cannot be as selective because they have so many spots to fill instead of the scholarships were only a few people receive them. As I am trying to be one of the few they choose to trust with their scholarships, I am trying to relay all the important events that I have been apart of as well as trying to make it flow easily from topic to topic.
1 Mikkelsen
When writing my narrative essay I have tried to include many literary devices to not only make it more descriptive but also more interesting. I think this has been hard to balance because you want to get your story across, while at the same not get too off topic with the descriptions of things, which I have caught myself doing a few times. I am writing about my time spent at SDSU’s health careers camp. My favorite part of the essay is when I use imagery to describe what it felt like to hold a human heart and brain. Before getting into how it actually felt I used some suspense and awkward humor to lead up to it and then I went on to explain how others around me may had felt to show that it was a big deal. I then went into detail to explain how it personally felt for me to hold the heart and brain. I am currently almost done with my essay and in my final paragraph. When I am done I am going to go back and try to make it less about telling the story and add more elements that will make it more descriptive and more interesting for the reader. I think one of my biggest struggles while writing this essay is trying to include enough interesting events that happened within the 5 hours but also at the same time making is descriptive for the reader. I have had to coordinate the events that happened in a logical manner, so when switching from one part to another it still makes sense as a whole essay. This has definitely been my favorite essay so far and I am excited to see how it comes together in the end; I hope it turns out how I want it to.
7 Munson
I decided to write the 1700 words on scholarship essays rather than on a narrative story. I would have rather written the story because it sounded more fun, but the scholarship essays seemed like they would be more useful. If I am being honest, I do not think I have used very many literary devices in my scholarship essays. Rather than going out of my way to add those devices I have been more worried about answering the question completely. I have also been trying to make sure that the word limits are met. One thing I have used is allusion. When speaking of books that I have read I compared them to references from other, more famous books. These allusions are to help people understand the books I am talking about. They are more likely to know The Lord of the Rings books than they are the Wheel of Time or A Song of Ice and Fire books, but they all fit into the fantasy genre and can thus be compared. I was also descriptive when speaking of these books. They are all very long and so it takes a lot of description to accurately tell what they are like. I also had to describe what I loved and why I loved it. I used imagery in the zombie defense plan to talk about how I would survive the apocalypse and save friends as well. There are literary devices that I could add. One such is symbolism. I could use symbols when I talk about how the experiences of my life have shaped me into who I am now. Since scholarships essays are meant to help learn more about the student I could also include anecdotes from my past.
Singh 7
I decided to write scholarship essays because I felt that doing so would be me most useful in my future pursuits. Trying to use literary devices was difficult since they are all non-fiction writings and my main focus is to impress the reader with my attributes. One thing that I mention in a lot of essays is my ethnic background. I feel it is a very unique part of my life that is very interesting especially in this part of the country. I try to express this trait of mine in many of my essays to let the reader know right away about it. For essays that want to know what kind of diversity you will bring to their campus, this was an excellent trait for me because it has exposed me to different food, lifestyle and culture.I try not to keep my essays to boring or stagnant and I try to add personality and voice to make the reader more interested in what I am talking about. I made my essays to the point and not too long so that the reader knew who I was without useless information. I also picked essay topics that really allowed me express my personality and show who I really am as a person. Another difficult challenge was making myself look appealing to scholarship givers with sounding arrogant and full of myself. I had to make sure my essays sounded humble and not make it sound like I am bragging. After reading through my essays I realized I did have some literary devices without even intentionally putting them in there. Imagery was used in most of essays to add a unique element and make the essays more fun to read. I have learned a lot of useful skills when writing these essays that I think will help me in the future.
6 Hokenstad
I have chosen to compose scholarship essays this week instead of a narrative essay, merely because they are more useful to me at this time. I enjoy that we had the choice between the two topics, because I find that writing these essays for class makes it easier to incorporate literary terms, and it is also very nice to have Mr. C available for suggestions on these essays.
Throughout my scholarship essays, I use a few literary strategies such as alliteration, but I could improve upon my writing by adding a variety of literary strategies. One device I would like to incorporate is parallelism, because I think it ties together a topic while not feeling forced or unnatural. I want to incorporate literary devices that seem natural, because the reader will want my essay to flow well and not seem forced, which I think certain literary devices often do. Symbolism may also be a device that could be useful for my writing and would display analytical skills to scholarship committees. Symbolism would fit well in the essay where I talk about a passion of mine that I do not include in my resume, which is painting. I plan on trying to incorporate subtle symbolism somewhere in that paragraph. My strongest literary device in my essays right now is alliteration, because it is easy to make alliterations sound natural. When using such a simple literary device, I use intelligent to make the technique stand out. One example of this is "paramount passion".
The only struggle I have faced in trying to speak highly of myself without bragging is word choice. It is difficult to use words that have a positive connotation without sounding self centered. I have counteracted this by using phrases that are humble, and show that I am not just bragging about my accomplishment. I find that using words such as "astonishing" or "amazing" sound conceited, while words such as "compassionate" and "diligent" sound intelligent and confident while not bragging.
3 DeCurtins
Of the literary devices I enjoy implementing, metaphors, symbols, and analogies are among my favorites. You will see me use analogies similar to the way Cormac McCarthy uses them, where some event or thing is described by depicting a totally different event or thing that is very similar. One of my best depicts a light being turned off: “...light in the room turned dark but glowed faintly still, a ghost who lived life to its fullest suddenly cut down by some accident in his prime ever clinging to the notion he may one day be given life again.” Analogies are one of my stronger literary devices as they provide an extra outlet for vivid imagery, and I suppose because I enjoy writing them so much. Juxtaposing two things and using that to explain something in a new and interesting way is possibly the most enjoyable way to write, which is why I also am strong at symbols and metaphors, as they are easily comparable to analogies. However, metaphors are slightly different, in that they are more poetic and tend to obviously be figurative in nature. One of my best metaphors describes light shining from a window: “Dim rays of many colors danced their pagan ritual on that floor…” Now, obviously rays of light and colors can’t actually dance nor do they have a concept of religion, but I use this to describe how the colors shifted around on the floor. Of course, symbols are a different enough from metaphors and analogies not to be confused, but their implementation is certainly subtle compared to the others. Usually symbols are more powerful if the writer uses a well known symbols like a skull for death. But I decided to make up a symbol to use as a motif throughout the essay: A dark, cold blanket which represents our protagonist’s crippling nihilism and self doubt and ultimately his thinking too much.
Braley 3
A few years ago I applied to be a part of a class trip, unfortunately, I was unable to be a part of it, yet I was fortunate enough to get some feedback on why I wasn't all to take part. The biggest criticism that I was given was that I seemed unable to really sell myself. This did not surprise me as I am usually very quiet and reserved which can at times make it hard for me to come out and talk about all the things I can do and have done, as I am afraid of coming off as bragging. I have become slightly better at selling myself since then but it is something I struggle with as I never want to be seen as someone who thinks of themselves as better than anyone else. Mainly due to the fact that when I talk with people who do that on a day to day basis I am fairly quick to get irritated with, however, an essay in which you are to talk yourself up is a very different platform that I just need to get comfortable working with. Something I am trying to go through and do that I think will help is cutting everything down and getting straight to the point. By getting straight to the point and avoiding flowery empty words as well as disagreeable pompous language--which is something I have a tendency to use more often than is necessary--it will remove the overall overbearing tone that they can change an essay from sounding overly boastful to merely giving the information that they are looking for. Another thing that I can do that would also help improve my ability to talk about myself is that instead of saying how good it was that I helped out at the banquet, I say how good it felt to help out at the banquet. This will come off as more palatable to your reader.
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