Semi-Daily Scribbles

I'm chock full of creative bits, but I'd have to say I'm experiencing a serious lack of imagination when it comes to these writing exercises. In fact, I'm finding that I'm exerting extra effort in clearing the fog from my brain and wiping gauzy film from my eyes. In the spirit of full disclosure, these essays are feeling like a chore. I'll continue to submit my thoughts on our weekly reading, and I may even jump into the fray of Essay, or not to Essay? It's really too bad the question made the rounds over on the Coursera discussion boards. I would be delighted to review a student's story about an invisible, Runasimi-speaking astronomer and his sloth sidekick washed ashore on a desert island. As far as I'm concerned, if it's 320 words worth of creativity, I'm all for it. It would be no lousy development within the framework of this course to review a composition that someone had fun writing from beginning to end.

Week 6 is completed. Here's what my classmates had to say about my H.G. Wells assignment:

FORM

student1 → The form of your essay was good, well managed with good sentence structure. The words are properly use and the argument laid out clearly. I give it a 3 since I have nothing negative to say. 🙂

student2 → The beginning sentence is quite awkward however you were clear in the rest. I wasn't sure if you were quoting something from the book or just using the language from within.

student3 → Your form is exceptional, and I don't see any items to comment upon within your essay. Great job. form :3

student4 → A couple of problems with continuity, for example: "When Mr. Cuss, the general practitioner who interviewed the strange Mr. Griffin in “The Invisible Man,” his doctor’s sense[…]" Let's get that apposition out, does "When Mr. Cuss his doctor's sense" have any sense? . Nevertheless, grammar and word use is mostly correct.

Score from your peers: 2.5

CONTENT

student1 → I certainly learned more about floral arrangements and history that I had known in the past but I did not see a clearly laid out argument that was persuasive or revealed anything new about the novel itself. I was not persuaded that the evening primrose was significant in the way you laid out the argument. There was too much history and not enough information on how the flower itself may have influenced his behavior. But it was interesting so it gets a two from me.

student2 → The background information concerning the language of flowers was interesting, but it seems more that you alluded to the significance of the primrose instead of coming right out and saying it. Sometimes direct is best.

student3 → You did am amiable job writing this essay and I applaud you. However there is definitely a lot of work for improvement in the content of your essay. Although you did a great job composing your essay with compelling verbiage your thesis is muddled and lacking. Your statement of "However, it is evening primrose’s symbolic representation that gives us clearer insight into the Invisible Man." Seems strong and bold however you did not actually state what this symbolic representation was, that is so clear to you but not to the reader. Your following paragraph states "suffice it to say Griffin was a man of inconstancy" which would have been great argumentative support but again you did not state this in the symbolic representation of your thesis. Leaves the reader confused until the middle of your essay where you mention "code name inconstant". Your following paragraph although insightful to the art of floriography, is a little lengthy and irrelevant to your argument about the use of primrose. Finally your incredibly bold statement of primrose giving clearer insight to the invisible man seemed a little over stated as your biggest argument was in reference to Griffin being an inconstant individual. I hope you don't take this as me disagreeing with your argument as when I begun your essay I was very interested and was hoping for something very insightful. I think you may be on to something, but you need to work on your delivery and strength of your arguments. Content:1

student4 → Seems a bit more of an entry on floriography rather than an actual essay regarding Wells' nove thanks to that third paragraph. It was unnecesary to give so much examples in it, since the extension of the text doesn't give you the opportunity to make a more detailed analysis.

Score from your peers: 2

Please write here any other comments which you feel might be of use to you or the writer of this essay.

student2 → I did enjoy reading this added aspect to these stories, however, it was quite unfortunate to have such a hard to parse first sentence.

student3 → You still did a great job and I hope you do continue to work hard at improving your essays.

student4 → The idea seemed interesting, but the development was a bit lousy.