I just got back the first installment of my sonnet analysis paper that I was dreading, and hear this: I got a B!!! I never thought I’d be so proud of a B, but after everyone in the writing center telling me for sure that I was going to get a C or a D on my first paper with Crider, I was really shocked and happy to get what I did. Now I just have to revise it, add 7 more pages of critical analysis (the first installment was strictly textual analysis ONLY), and I will be done with the class!
At the end of the paper, on the attached grading rubric sheet, he wrote one of the harshest yet still inspiring comments that I’ve ever received. He says: This is an excellent poem analysis, and a good essay. The thesis is excellent and you defend it well through analysis of rhetorical poetics. The whole needed both organization and style revision. The paragraphing is journalistic, and it needs to open even more powerfully. Style is uneven: sometimes, your prose is lucid and moving; sometimes, wordy and slanted. Edit more thoroughly. All in all, now a good essay with the potential for excellence.
Ouch, and also, Yay! If you would like to read the unfinished product, I have included a link to it. Just in case you hadn’t achieved your Shakespearean sonnet analysis quota for the day:)
http://docs.google.com/View?docID=0Aaz-gZHa0UBWZHg2cDluZ183ZGI3ZHo3aGo&revision=_latest