Essay 8

Loneliness:
An Essay on Being Lonely
An essay by Alexander Hawley
8th Grade English
Pine Point School
November 18, 2010

     Have you ever felt the very empty feeling of loneliness?  People in both the real and fictional worlds have many times. Representing the fictional world, is Dill, an extremely lonely child from To Kill a Mockingbird. Also, from the real world, I have felt lonely many times in my life. People from all kinds of places, whether they are real or made up, or from China or America, feel loneliness.
     (TS) In the book To Kill a Mockingbird Dill, one of the main characters, feels lonely a lot in chapter 14. (SD) Part of Dill’s loneliness is that his parents don’t do entertaining things with him. (CM) He felt badly because “they just wasn’t interested in [him].” (CM) Furthermore, he always felt abandoned because his parents just went and read in another room; they just wouldn’t spend time with him. (SD) Dill reinforces his loneliness by thinking negatively. (CM) He thinks “they do get on a lot better without [him],” when that might not be entirely true. (CM) However, although the fact that his parents don’t need him might not be true, his parents are always apart from him and they do give him good reason to think he is useless as they act like he is unnecessary to them. (CS) Dill is always lonely, but you can tell he has good reason to be lonely with his parents, a couple that neglects their adopted son.
     (TS) Loneliness is not only felt by Dill and fictional characters, but also by real world people like me. (SD) I sometimes feel abandoned when I stay home alone with nothing living except my dog, a sometimes boring creature whose favorite things are eating and sleeping. (CM) At first it is great fun to be able to do whatever you want, but after you’ve watched enough TV and played enough video games, you feel very excluded from what everyone else is doing. (CM) My sister might be at a friend’s house, while my parents are at Home Depot or some dull store, but I am in an even duller place, my lifeless house. (SD) It makes me feel solitary if I am not at hockey or school for a whole day because although I might see some people, I won’t usually get to see my friends. (CM) If you have ever gotten lost in a crowd of people, you know that you feel very alone even with all of those people around you because you don’t know any of them. (CM) This relates to not having anything all day because the people you see are just like those people in the crowd, totally irrelevant to you. (CS) Real world loneliness is the same as loneliness that Dill feels in the book.
     Scores of people from all around are lonely. Dill, a book character, feels lonely a lot due to his selfish parents. I, however, don’t have selfish parents, but busy parents who aren’t always around and that sometimes can make me lonely. Loneliness can be felt by every living thing, from made up book characters like Dill, to humans living right now like me, and even to animals like dogs who can be locked in a crate all day long with no one around.   

Self Assessment

1. One issue I am still working on is having sentences that flow and don’t have to be read twice.
2. I think that it is actually particularly good at flowing sentences because I read it over twice and reworded some things.
3. In the second body paragraph in the first CM of the second SD it is kind of off topic but I like the description so much I kept that sentence.
4. I would give myself an A- because I think it has some great sentences and lots of F.A.S.T. words but a few parts might have to be read twice for some people.

KEY

Bold=Echo or bell word
Red=FAST word
Blue=Appositive phrase
Pink=Participle at the end of a sentence

Essay 8 Outline

Alexander
11/16/10

Outline of Essay 8

Bell word: lonely, loneliness

Paragraph 1
Hook: have you ever felt lonely
CM: Dill did 
CM: I did
Thesis: People feel lonely all the time

Paragraph 2
Echoes: apart, abandoned
TS: Dill’s loneliness in TKAM
SD: his parents didn’t do things with him
        CM: “they just wasn’t interested in me”
        CM: they just read in another room
    SD: he feels they could do better without him; he feels they don’t need him
        CM: “they do get on a lot better without me”
        CM: they act like he is useless to
CS: Dill was lonely in TKAM and I understand because I have been lonely

Paragraph 3
Echoes: alone, solitary
TS: My real world loneliness
    SD: I stay home alone
        CM: I sometimes feel lonely after a while
        CM: to solve I usually text people
    SD: On days I don’t have hockey or school 
        CM: I see a lot of friends at both places
        CM: I get to spend time with them
CS: I’m not lonely a lot, but I am sometimes

Paragraph 4
Bell Word: lonely
Hook: Lots of people are lonely
CM: Dill is lonely
CM: I’m lonely
Re-Statement of Thesis: you can always be lonely even in a crowd of people

Essay 7

Growth:

My Thoughts on Growing Up

An Essay by Alexander Hawley

8^th Grade English

Pine Point School

November 4, 2010

            (TS) Growing up is a important and helpful-sometimes slow, and it is sometimes fast, but it is sometimes possible that you will grow faster, or better, with someone’s help. (SD) The best part of growing up is that when you mature it really helps you for the rest of your life. (CM) It helps you because while growing, going to school, and observing, you gain lots of knowledge. (CM) Not only knowledge as in how to do algebra, but you also learn important life skills, like fire is not something you touch, a very early and crucial life skill. (CM) Also, when you are growing, you gain more practice at the things that you learned earlier in your life. (SD) Also, as earlier stated, growing can happen at many different speeds. (CM) It can be a very rapid process if you experience something very sad or highly emotional because it will probably have a big impact on you. (CM)For example, when Jem meets Mrs. Dubose and actually gets to know her, he grows a lot faster when she, unexpectedly for him, dies. (CM) Also, growing can be slow if you are just going through life with nothing unexpected, if you are just on a normal schedule for every day of your life. (SD) Furthermore, someone else can help you grow up better into an adult, a responsible, a nice, a polite, and an intelligent person. A sample of this from To Kill a Mockingbird is how Atticus is so responsible, that he is slowly teaching his children to grow up into good adults. (CM) Also, if you admire someone, whether they like it or not, they are teaching you how to grow up because you are going to do whatever they are doing no matter what it is. (CS) The very important puzzle that is growing up has some hard parts, like the background where everything is the same color, and it has some easy parts, but you might need some help from a friend to put it together right. 

Underline= F.A.S.T. word
Bold= appositive phrase       

Growing Up Organizer

Alexander

English Class

11/2/10

Graphic Organizer

Main Point: Growing up

TS: Growing up is very important, but you aren’t the only one who controls it

SD: Growing up helps you

            CM: As you grow you gain more knowledge to help you

            CM: You also get more practice at the thing you do know about

SD: Growing up happens at different speeds

            CM: It is fast if you experience something really important

            CM: It is slow when you are just going along with your daily schedule

SD: You can learn how to grow up right from someone else

            CM: Atticus teaches Jem to grow up

            CM: If you admire someone they are teaching you how to grow up

CS: When you grow up you can control how much use you make out of it, but someone else determines what you learn while growing up.