Please Critique - 10th Grade Descriptive Composition

[Shelly in VA]

Please give me some input into how to critique this assignment. I'm not very happy with the assignment, but I would like some objective input before I give dd16 (10th grade) my feedback. Thank you!

 

The assignment was to write a descriptive composition of 150-200 words, making sure to use creative expressions and avoid cliches, use specific nouns/verbs/modifiers, avoid passive verbs, use figures of speech, and use triplets for appeal.

 

Disney World

 

My family and I walk past a guitar-shaped pool, dragging our luggage behind us across the uneven slippery concrete. The water in the pool is in excited turmoil, reflecting its many swimmers. We walk past a piano pool next, full of perfectly still water that looks as smooth as glass silk. A peaceful silence drowns out the swimmers' shouts. A huge pair of cowboy boots tower ahead, framing the entrance to Disney's Country Music Hotel. At their base, vertigo unbalances me as I try to see their tops.

 

We make our way up the rickety stairs, and I pause for a moment's look out at the resort. I can faintly hear the splashing and the watery voices from the guitar pool. Tall, exotic palm trees next to the hotel look like black pixels against the smooth twilight dome of the sky.

 

I step into the room for the first time and lay down my bags. It looks as though I have stepped into the realm of a Mickey Mouse Fan Club. Mickey Mouse faces cover the bedspreads, sit on the soaps, and sprawl across the walls. We go to sleep that night, confident that our vacation will be magical.

[regentrude]

I am not a writing expert - but here is my impression:

he is trying HARD. Too hard. Too many adjectives, metaphors and personifications- it sounds strangely contrived and unnatural.

This may be in response to the task "use creative expressions, figures of speech".

A few specific examples:

 

My family and I walk past a guitar-shaped pool, dragging our luggage behind us across the uneven slippery concrete. The water in the pool is in excited turmoil, reflecting its many swimmers.

 

 

"excited turmoil" is a bit much. Also, if the water is in turmoil, it will not REFLECT anything (only a smooth surface would). I assume he means the turmoil reflects the fact that there are many swimmers?

 

We walk past a piano pool next, full of perfectly still water that looks as smooth as glass silk.

 

cliche

 

A peaceful silence drowns out the swimmers' shouts.

 

 

 

Silence can not drown out noise.

 

A huge pair of cowboy boots tower ahead, framing the entrance to Disney's Country Music Hotel. At their base, vertigo unbalances me as I try to see their tops.

 

 

sounds contrived

 

We make our way up the rickety stairs,

 

cliche

Tall, exotic palm trees next to the hotel look like black pixels against the smooth twilight dome of the sky.

 

Somehow, palm trees are always exotic...

 

 

I would set the goal of getting him to write in a more natural voice. This writing screams "assignment: use similes, adjectives, comparisons and sound "literary"."

[Shelly in VA]

Thanks for the input! You expressed just what I was thinking, except you stated it clearly and without the emotion I might have used on my own. ;) I'm crossing my fingers for the rewrite!

[Sevilla]

One thing that can be helpful in a rewrite in this type of situation is to set limits - total up how many adjectives he used in the paragraph and cut it in half, and tell him he has to reduce his usage down to that level without sacrificing style/meaning.

[Shelly in VA]

That's a great idea. I like the specific, directed suggestion. Thank you!

 

Shelly

[Shelly in VA]

Asking for help again! Here is dd's rewritten composition. It is different, but I'm not sure that it's better. Sigh. I just want award-winning writing from a 16yo; is that too much to ask? ;)

 

Disney World

 

My family and I walk past a pool shaped like a guitar, dragging our luggage behind us across the concrete. The swimmers in the pool send sparkles of water through the air. Next, we walk past a pool in the shape of a piano, full of unbroken water. A peaceful silence drowns out the swimmers' shouts. A pair of oversized cowboy boots tower ahead, framing the entrance to Disney's Country Music Hotel. At their base, I squint against the setting sun as I try to see their tops.

 

We make our way up the stairs, and I pause for a moment's look out at the resort. I can faintly hear the splashing and the watery voices from the pool. The palm trees on the horizon look like black pixels against the dome of the sky.

 

I step into the room for the first time and lay down my bags. It looks as though I have stepped into the realm of a Mickey Mouse Fan Club. Mickey Mouse faces cover the bedspreads, sit on the soaps, and sprawl across the walls. We go to sleep that night, confident that our vacation will be magical.

[Julie in MN]

I'm not sure about any of the requirements, but I assume they must be IEW criteria? I do think his "decorations" are part of his assignment, so "over-decorating" might be required in this case? I'm not sure he is supposed to take them out, but I do think cleaning them up would help a lot.

 

I'm not sure kids have enough experience to really know what is cliche, so I'd just help him with that after he's written his draft. Here are some things I might chat about with my own son, if he had an assignment like that. I'm going to use his first draft, since I think it's closer to what he needs for his assignment?

 

 

Disney World

 

My family and I walk past a guitar-shaped pool, dragging our luggage behind us across the uneven slippery concrete. The water in the pool is in excited turmoil,[i'd like to see one perfect adjective to replace "excited turmoil."]

reflecting its many swimmers. [i see what you're trying to say, but "reflecting" in water usually means a mirror effect; I think you might need to turn this around so the swimmers are the subject? Or work with the word "reflecting" a little more.]

We walk past [you've already said "walk past" and this isn't set up for a parallel effect, so I'd find one perfect word to replace the two, such as "pass" -- or something more specific.]

a piano pool next, full of perfectly still water that looks as smooth as glass silk.[i think this is an interesting twist on a cliche, but make sure your teacher won't think it's just a cliche?]

A peaceful silence drowns out the swimmers' shouts.[i see where you're going but "drowns out" might not be the right meaning you are looking for. "Drowns" goes well with the water, but not with the silence?]

A huge pair of cowboy boots tower["A pair" is a singular subject, so the verb should match.]

ahead, framing the entrance to Disney's Country Music Hotel. At their base, vertigo unbalances me as I try[Maybe a better verb than "try" -- maybe "strain"?]

to see their tops.

 

We make our way up the rickety stairs,[i can't believe Disney would have anything rickety or close to falling apart? Unless it's part of a theme park motif (which could be mentioned)?]

and I pause for a moment's look out at the resort. I can faintly[Your hearing isn't faint, the sounds are, so move the "faint" and maybe choose a more perfect word, not sure?]

hear the splashing and the watery voices from the guitar pool. Tall, exotic["Exotic" would mean they are particularly unusual palms. Sometimes they seem exotic to my untrained Minnesotan eyes :) , but maybe you meant a different adjective?]

palm trees next to the hotel look like black pixels against the smooth[i'd like to understand why you selected the word "smooth" here. I'm thinking "black pixels" couldn't be seen in a dark sky, so you were going for something that said the sky wasn't dark yet, so the pixels stand out? I like this idea so I'd like to see it really crystal-clear that the sky wasn't a smooth black.]

twilight dome of the sky.

 

I step into the room for the first time and lay down my bags. It looks as though I have stepped into the realm of a Mickey Mouse Fan Club. Mickey Mouse faces cover the bedspreads, sit on the soaps, and sprawl across the walls. We go to sleep that night, confident that our vacation will be magical.[i like this, but want to be sure that the Mickey Mouse Fan Club part is inviting to you and not silly, because I felt it could go either way. I'd like it to leads more exactly to the happy last sentence, maybe by making "realm" more clearly wonderful?]

[gingersmom]

I am not a writing expert - but here is my impression:

he is trying HARD. Too hard.

 

This was exactly what I was thinking. :001_smile:

 

It did make me smile though.

[Shelly in VA]

Thank you for all of the input! It's very helpful to me.

 

Shelly

[Nan in Mass]

I'm not good at this, but I happen to like the second one much better than the first one. She managed to tone it down without eliminating all the descriptive bits. It still sounds like an assignment, but it is an assignment, with certain requirements, so it is bound to sound somewhat contrived.

-Nan

[Teachin'Mine]

One suggestion would be to vary the sentence structure a bit. :)

[at the beach]

I will post my thoughts. But obviously, they are just my opinion. Perhaps you will find something helpful.

 

I agree that it seems as though she's trying too hard. And with the second composition, I feel she loses some of the nice aspects of the first. I like guitar-shaped pool more than pool shaped like a guitar, for example. She has made changes, but both compositions seem about the same in quality to me. And I really hope that doesn't sound discouraging. She really needs to think about her word choice to make sure these sentences really say what she wants them to say. I'm not sure that watery voices really makes sense to me. I'm also not sure a peaceful silence can drown out shouts. Since she writes in first person for this, has she considered putting in more of her reactions to the scene around her? She does this at the end when she writes about feeling confident this vacation will be magical, and I really like that.

 

What program are you using with her? Honestly, the assignment is so very detailed as to what it asks for that it seems like it would inhibit someone's natural voice. I, personally, would find it difficult to write something creative having those restrictions. But everyone is different. A thesaurus would help her come up with more unique adjectives to describe things, but I would leave that until after she actually writes her composition.

 

I don't think "vertigo unbalances me" sounds contrived.

 

Has she read Elements of Style? That would be a great book to have her read. I also really like The Lively Art of Writing even just as a read-through. These books are very trim and very inexpensive. Well worth the investment of time and money IMO.

 

It's so hard to give feedback because it really depends on the child. After praising her efforts and pointing out the strengths of her writing, I'd encourage her to give it another revision and only do the following right now. She should 1) read each sentence and make sure that it says what she wants it to, 2) replace adjectives/phrases that don't really make sense and 3) replace adjectives that seem common with something a bit more unique--"rickety," for example. Easy enough with a thesaurus. Then see what you think.

 

Best wishes!:001_smile:

 

ETA: Your daughter does well with the grammar aspects of writing. I do agree, though, that sentence structure seems very similar throughout the composition and that might be something to focus on, too, at some point. I'd probably address that with a later composition so as not to overwhelm and discourage her.

Edited May 24, 2011 by Violet