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So my mom somehow found and sent me essays I'd written in high school. For entertainment purposes, I will transcribe them here so you can hear what my 17-yr-old self sounded like. They are what they are, most of which is somewhat amusing and only slightly painful. :) I will include teacher comments in brackets because they're pretty funny too (not the least of which is because some of them were wrong). The underline shows the thesis statement, which we were forced to underline to prove that we knew what the hell it was.
The Dangers of Dirty Rooms
by Michelle Redden
4-13-88
In this life we are faced with many hardships; some more difficult than others[,] but none with quite the same degree of danger as the dreadful task of cleaning our rooms. [You] Take mine, for instance. I know that two of the worst places to clean in my room are underneath the bed and in the closet.
My bed is the central piece of furniture in my room. I sit on it, sleep on it, and do homework on it. However, I never go alone into the no-man's-land beneath it. The "world below" is inhabited by dust bunnies, lost objects, and other less friendly creatures. My brother's is worse than mine ever dreamed of being. I know of toys that disappeared down there never to be seen again. Remains of food have been plunged into that horrid place only to reemerge changed forever into unknown substances that plot to take over the world. [Is not incorporated into thesis and topic sentences. Good description, though.]
Whereas the bed is a more insidious threat, the closet is a more direct, physical challenge. [Good vocabulary, good topic sentence.] In my closet, the shelf above my clothes bar is filled to the ceiling with junk from years past[,] precariously balanced. The least addition requires a rearranging feat that Houdini would be proud of. The old clothes, shoes a foot deep on the floor, [strikethrough on comma] & junk in general thrown in there during room cleanings of the past add to the mess.
Closets and beds are some of the worst problems but they aren't the only ones. The piles of junk that accumulate out of nowhere and shift from surface to surface around the room, the drifts of dust that cover everything,[strikethrough on comma, run-on sentence] these are just a few of the weird and unusual perils of dirty rooms.
The Dangers of Dirty Rooms
by Michelle Redden
4-13-88
In this life we are faced with many hardships; some more difficult than others[,] but none with quite the same degree of danger as the dreadful task of cleaning our rooms. [You] Take mine, for instance. I know that two of the worst places to clean in my room are underneath the bed and in the closet.
My bed is the central piece of furniture in my room. I sit on it, sleep on it, and do homework on it. However, I never go alone into the no-man's-land beneath it. The "world below" is inhabited by dust bunnies, lost objects, and other less friendly creatures. My brother's is worse than mine ever dreamed of being. I know of toys that disappeared down there never to be seen again. Remains of food have been plunged into that horrid place only to reemerge changed forever into unknown substances that plot to take over the world. [Is not incorporated into thesis and topic sentences. Good description, though.]
Whereas the bed is a more insidious threat, the closet is a more direct, physical challenge. [Good vocabulary, good topic sentence.] In my closet, the shelf above my clothes bar is filled to the ceiling with junk from years past[,] precariously balanced. The least addition requires a rearranging feat that Houdini would be proud of. The old clothes, shoes a foot deep on the floor, [strikethrough on comma] & junk in general thrown in there during room cleanings of the past add to the mess.
Closets and beds are some of the worst problems but they aren't the only ones. The piles of junk that accumulate out of nowhere and shift from surface to surface around the room, the drifts of dust that cover everything,[strikethrough on comma, run-on sentence] these are just a few of the weird and unusual perils of dirty rooms.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 08:04 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 08:11 pm (UTC)From:God, writing for English was boring. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 12:51 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 08:12 pm (UTC)From:My mom has some stuff that I wrote when I was 10 or 11 years old, but beyond that age, my early writing efforts are lost forever. Which is probably for the best.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 11:26 pm (UTC)From:Don't you love how teachers take perfectly-well-constructed, personal-style sentences and insist that you rephrase them in ways that are not only awkward to the writer, but awkward to the reader, as well?
JD
no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 03:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 12:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 02:27 am (UTC)From:Whuh? It may be that the way to inspire an American literary Rennaissance is to stop making kids take high school English.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 02:52 am (UTC)From:I actually have a fair amount of high school stuff in digital form on this very laptop, but it's mostly very long and not particularly amusing.