Jeez, are we pasionate about hunting or what!
Yeah, B or C. If you get worse, ask her why.
"Yeah, I do!" That's pretty classic. If you ever get the chance, white something called 'Why I Kill Bambi' and incorporate what Rob said. Feel her out. Not U*!

Nic

Hard to say what's going to happen. I went to school a semester in Orlando....I'm from Wisconsin. I had no problem fitting in, but, like you, in my English class I chose to write about hunting topics. Instead of cell phones, I wrote about canned hunts. On a few different occasions. Anyways, I think my teacher was ***** or something, because he never did show much appreciation, and I ended the class with a C.

Hey Bow -

Nice essay.

Remember that logic frequently is lost on those whose life outlook is based on feelings.

You need to couch your responses to critique (should you get a 1:1 critique) in "Value" based terms. Our educators today have been taught that it is wrong to "Question" someone elses values.

Statements like - "Hunting is part of my (family's, religion's, race's, etc.) heritage".

"I value the superior protein available from 'Free Range' herbivores".

&quot;I am honoring tradition&quot;. Are statements that are difficult for them to state as invalid - lest they go away from standard PC doctrine. <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>

Remember, it is not &quot;PC&quot; to question someone's values.

Good Luck

BTW - That girl sounds like she could be a keeper. Might be fun to go on some hunts with her. <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>



&quot;It's not the kill, it's the adventure and challenge! <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>&quot;

Edited by - justinl on 09/09/2002 16:49:39

I had an english teacher that I went round and round with over a pro-gun essay I wrote. All my arguements were backed and logically defensiable. He played it off such that it was one small grade and it wouldn't matter in the long run. My junior honors project was all about deer management and despite the liberal tendencies I still got a decent grade on it.

Some things are true whether you believe them or not.

Hey, Jason. I noticed a couple grammatical errors. I'm not in college, and haven't even started any English for my senior year.

I shakily reach for my bow, praising God for the opportunity to be in my favorite place in the world: my deer stand.

I reckon a dash would serve better than a colon. General a dash seperates a sentence from further information. The fragment, &quot;my deer stand,&quot; is providing additional information pertaining to your favorite place in the world. Colons usually seperate a list of items, such as ingredients. Also, the first letter of the first word after a colon is supposed to be capitalized.

When my stress level reaches maximum, I am overcome with worry, and I don’t think I can cope any longer....I sit down and relax, take a deep breathe, close my eyes, and travel back to that place.

When using such dots, four indicate the end of a sentence, three indicate a continuation. They're often used in quations indication there was more said that isn't being noted. I reckon a semi-colon has more place though.

I'm not trying to insult your intellect or massively crtique your essay, it was cool. Some of those are rather elementary rules of grammar. At the collegiate level, it's stuff like that that messes up peoples' grades, not so much the subject matter. So if you're not happy with your grade, ask your teacher the reasons it was marked down. If, after that, you feel you were slided, go above her head.

God bless,
Brandan

Interesting post, bow-addict -- especially for me, since I've been an avid bowhunter for years and hold a master's in English with an emphasis in teaching rhetoric and composition. I also hold a bachelor's of science in journalism with an emphasis in writing news and editorial content, and was a copy editor for several years before being named editor of a newspaper in central Arkansas. My graduate degree was awarded with academic distinction (4.0 on a 4.0 scale), and I taught composition at our local university for four years before moving on to pursue my own entrepreneurial ambitions. My master's thesis was a collection of short stories about my hunting and fishing experiences while growing up.

I say all that just to let you know I do know that of which I speak, and I wish to softly rebut a couple of IrishLad's statements, while simultaneously expounding on the points you inquire about regarding your essay. Hopefully, this will answer some of your questions, and feel free to print this out if it will help.

First of all, IrishLad's &quot;pointers&quot; reflect the erroneous misgivings gathered under the tutelage of many an old-time traditional &quot;English teacher&quot; who knows nothing of truly teaching composition. (It's a slam on the teacher, IrishLad, not you. ) In short, those teachers from yesteryear -- or that era's mentality -- believe all writing should be graded by how many grammatical mistakes can be found in a given piece of writing. They're clearly not grading content, or if the author was able to effectively reach his or her audience and make them &quot;see&quot; his world.

Effective writers are often rule-breakers; yet, there are really no hard-and-fast rules you've broken here, bow-addict. The &quot;sentence fragment&quot; noted above is undeniably not one. You absolutely used the colon properly, and should be recognized for having the courage to integrate it into your essay. (Most college essayists aren't capable enough, or won't attempt it.) According to my Instructor's Edition of the The Little Brown Handbook, Sixth Edition, the first reason listed for using a colon is to &quot;introduce a concluding explanation...&quot; (e.g., my deer stand), and is &quot;always preceded by a main clause.&quot; For those for whom a visual example would be better, let me give one provided by the handbook itself: &quot;Soul food has one dissadvantage: fat.&quot;

As a quick aside, a semicolon is a useful punctuation tool used to keep from committing the grammatical crime known as a comma splice, e.g., &quot;I'm not trying to insult your intellect or massively crtique [sic] your essay, it was cool.&quot; Replacing the &quot;,&quot; with a &quot;;&quot; would separate the two main clauses in this construction, thus yielding a correctly structured sentence, since a comma cannot separate main clauses unless they are linked by a coordinating conjunction. IrishLad is correct though in his information on properly using ellipses marks.

Enough of that, though. Rob is, of course, absolutely right in his answer which should have been given by the girl. And in no instance should an instructor's personal biases be allowed to govern or dictate his grading methodologies. Having said that, we are fully aware of the fact that the American university is one of the last bastions for communism in the world, and many a liberal will attempt to use the classroom podium as his bully pulpit from which to espouse his political ideologies. (On second thought, you may not want to print this out and let your instructor read it. <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>)

While there is a smattering of grammatical mistakes in your paper, if it were turned in by one of my students -- graded wholly on the writer's ability, not subject matter -- I would probably assign it anywhere from an 87 to a 91. Of course that grade is recited without knowing any criteria given beforehand with which the grade would be measured against; in other words, was it of adequate length? (It seemed a bit short in this BBS format.) Were there specific skill sets being looked for within this writing assignment? And there may be other criteria being looked for as well.

Overall though, your usage of similes and metaphors contribute to paint a nice picture for the reader. I as the reader would want to know how putting all those hours in as waiting time has transformed you into a better person. Why is that? And, what happened to the deer you introduced to your reader? You left us hanging a bit there.

Your sentence, &quot;But wait!&quot; seems to introduce us to a moment when something startling or surprising is about to be revealed. I would question whether the serenity of a sunrise is indeed a startling revelation, or more of a softer experience which seems to envelope us with its subtleness.

Overall though, this has the basis to be a very good piece. If your instructor believes in the revision method of writing (which basically means that most pieces need to be revised or developed several times before they are perfected, both from the reader's and the author's point of view), you've certainly got a great starting point. If this piece is to be accepted as in its final state, you've got academically a B+ paper. More importantly, though, you've been able to verbalize and capture one of the key elements of why hunting is important to you as a person. No matter the end of the story in your writing class, don't let this be the end of your writing.

Discipline -- not desire -- determines destiny.

[Deleted by Admins]

bow-

I liked the essay - let us know what happens - and what happened with the deer!

-Mike

Thanks BOW HNT, but I'll correct the &quot;are&quot; to &quot;were&quot;, if you don't mind!

Teaching composition is a very time-consuming and mentally draining profession -- albeit rewarding. Outside of class time, I bet I put in another three or four hours every night reading students' writings -- and that didn't include prep time for the next time my students and I met. Most good comp teachers today also conference one-on-one a extensively (I set aside a week per semester to do it), and will make more annotative and marginal comments than the students will write in the body of their text.

And, to top it all off, every semester our composition department would have to deal with an influx of papers about people having &quot;out-of-body experiences,&quot; where they were connected by a &quot;thin, silvery thread&quot; while in dream mode or some hogwash like that. Talk about being hard not to remain biased! Can you imagine writing, &quot;How did you FEEL when you floated up above your body and looked down at it?&quot;

Discipline -- not desire -- determines destiny.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote<font size=1 face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>




Enough of that, though. Rob is, of course, absolutely right in his answer which should have been given by the girl. And in no instance should an instructor's personal biases be allowed to govern or <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' size=2 id=quote>

Thank you sir, and by your qualifications, I am humbly honored <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> and I still owe you a video.

<font color=blue>Good Luck and Good Shooting</font id=blue>

<font color=red>Rob</font id=red>