9th grade essay - Would appreciate feedback

[kRenee]

My daughter read a book on Russian history and wrote this essay. Since I do not pretend to be an accomplished writer, I would like your feedback. And if you have suggestions on issues she can work on in the future, that would be great!

 

Thanks, Karen

 

 

Stalin's Russia

 

As the famous saying goes, Russian history is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Stalin is deeply engraved in Russian history and one of the reasons it is so enigmatic. His nonsensical attempts at collectivization turned the peasants against him. Paranoid control over the media orchestrated in his name crushed any factual information and led to confusion among the people. Finally, his Cimmerian secret police terrorized decent citizens and killed thousands. As all this was done-or so Stalin said-for the people it terrorized, it is easy to see why the riddle remains wrapped in mystery still lost in an enigma to this day.

 

When famine hit Russia in the early 1900s, Stalin’s solution was to collectivize the peasant farms. Collectivization meant dividing all the land, animals and food equally among the peasants in a given area. The peasants reviled it. Throughout history, the Russian peasants believed the land belonged to the people who worked it and now, with collectivization, they didn’t get to keep anything. Not the food they grew, not the animals they paid for, not even the houses they lived in. In protest, they massacred their animals and incinerated their grain. As a result, the famine worsened and Stalin’s popularity with peasants plummeted.

 

Control over the media is a reoccurring theme in Russian history. When Stalin came to power, it reached new heights. Newspapers weren’t allowed to print anything other than fictitious concoctions about how well Stalin’s varied attempts at reform were working. Dissenting poets, like Anna Akhmtova, had their works unofficially banned and their family members threatened or sometimes surreptitiously killed. People resorted to underground illegal newspaper readings just to find out what was happening in the world. Stalin’s claims that rigid control of the media would help restore order were untrue and only helped fuel revolution.

 

As a final blow in his tragic triage of terror, Stalin strengthened the secret police. First formed under Lenin in 1917, the Cheka quickly gained power and became an instrument of oppression. When the Cheka was disbanded in 1921, its powers were transferred to the GPU. After Stalin came into power, the GPU was renamed the NKVD. The NKVD was the most powerful secret police Russia had ever seen and it played a critical role in the Great Terror of the 1930s. All of these different organizations served a threefold purpose-to terrorize, to provide forced labor and to investigate anyone suspected of disloyalty to Stalin.

 

Although we may think of history as a thing of the past, Russia is still struggling with the repercussions of Stalin’s rule. Even today the Russian economy is struggling in the aftermath of collectivization. No one can replace the thousands of lives lost to the secret police, which was dissolved only 50 years ago. After Stalin, the media received partial freedom but newspapers remain watchful of what they print to stay on the safer side of the changing political winds. Russian people are still endeavoring to free themselves of the deep scar left in their history by the enigmatic Stalin.

Edited March 25, 2011 by kRenee

[Brilliant]

Your dd is a good writer; I would be happy with this paper if my 9th grade ds had written it. Her paragraphs are well organized and she has good sentence variety and vocabulary.

 

The only problem I have with the essay is that I don't think her paragraphs support her thesis statement, which I think is the following sentence: "Stalin is deeply engraved in Russian history and one of the reasons it is so enigmatic." The body of her paper doesn't seem to be so much about the enigma of Russia as it is the terrors that Stalin wreaked on the Russian people during his reign. I'm sure she wants to keep her riddle/enigma/mystery theme, but I would have had my ds replace the thesis statement with something like: "Although Josef Stalin claimed to helping the Russian people, his reforms actually harmed them and led to millions of deaths."

 

Then, she could try to keep most of the opening and closing paragraphs intact, but state exactly how this is an enigma - because the people allowed it? Or something else?

[kRenee]

Thank you so much. I think you are exactly right and I couldn't put my finger on the problem.

 

I really appreciate your time.

 

Karen

[ChrissySC]

I found ambiguous use of pronouns. Pronouns appear to be a problem with most writers as of late. Clarify "it."

 

I found quite a few commas were missing. I will assume that you missed them in transcribing to digital text. :)

 

While the vocabulary is rich, the transition needs a bit of work. The paragraphs quickly jumped from farming to the control of media. I felt ill-prepared for the transition.

 

Beause of the quality, I am being a little critical. Please do not take offense, but you might want to encourage a more directly stated thesis.

 

Summary: punctuation, pronoun usage, and a more directly stated intent (or thesis)

[kRenee]

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my daughter's essay and give feedback. No offense taken - your points are valid.