Student Example Postings

#1) "My Freshman Year" is an effectively thought-provoking essay because it raises awareness about collegiate norms in terms of thoughts and behavior. This paper critiques American standards of cultural education, but does so without prejudgment or generalization. I agree that getting into college doesn't make you smart or well-informed; I have witnessed all sorts of questions being asked of apparent foreigners that have made me me want to slap the ignorant inquirer. I also disagree with parts of this essay; America is not the only nation that teaches history in its own context. I have had the opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom: England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, to represent the U.S. in a student ambassador program. In every place I visited during the month there I received the same kind of ignorant questions, especially when saying I was from Texas. No one knew where Texas was, but they were certain I rode a horse to school, carried a revolver and randomly yelled "YEEHAW!" People of all ages asked me those type of things with total seriousness. It is always good to learn just a bit more about other cultures, as it all the more opens your eyes.

#2) In “Long Overdue,” by Naomi Shibab Nye begins and ends her essay with a figure of a gardener, hired to clean up her neglected yard. Because Nye’s essay is about the prejudice faced by people of Arab descent, her decision to use the gardener, who she describes as being “large and blond as a Viking” (99), as a bookend of sorts is a curious but rhetorically effective one. In keeping with Nye’s poetical style, she uses strong images throughout her text, without offering a straightforward explanation of what they mean; the gardener seems to function as one of these images. Of her neglected yard, he says, “Long overdue” (100). His words come to have particular meaning for Nye, who feels that she is “long overdue” in addressing the prejudice she faces as a Palestinian. However, when she closes her essay, she uses the gardener to suggest that sometimes words cannot suffice: “The gardener laid the stones. He cut the trees back. He turned over the soil around the plants so their roots could breathe. He used no language doing it” (102). It is my opinion that the gardener is some kind of metaphor. Nye must use him as an important symbol, as she opens and closes her essay by discussing him. While this may not appear to be a very successful rhetorical device because the reader might have trouble figure out her intention, it does force the reader to keep thinking about what it means and supply his or her own interpretations.