Part Two 09/08/08

Writing Strategies

1. Some of the details that the author used that appealed to me were the ones where she explained her house, and even though her street address had nothing to do with the story, it made it sound different and caught my attention. Other details that Bosley wrote was how hard the judges critique the girls in their pageants. 

2. Bosley's essay matters to its readers because it shows how she can elaborate on her childhood, from her relationship with her mother, her family life, her relationship with her father, her fiance, the beauty pageant itself, and other important details of her childhood. 

3. What I like most about your essay is how you make fun of how "perfect" the girls who win beauty pageants have to be. The main suggestion I have about your essay is to maybe explain more of what happened with your parents, or your fiance.

4. Although Bosley's title suggests that she loses the beauty pageant, I don't think she actually says the real reason why she lost. The point of her essay seems to be that she is poor, she tried to win the beauty pageant, and then she loses because she talked about her mothers loneliness. She lost the pageant because instead of saying she wants to cure world hunger, she wants her mom to no longer be lonely.

Exploring Ideas

2. Bosley's point about beauty pageants speaks to larger issues such as competition, class, tradition, media, etc. because her point of view is that to win something, like a beauty pageant, you need to be rich, be the "popular girl", perfect, etc. 

3. One good example that speaks to the angst of the world would be slavery and discrimination  in America. Just because African Americans had a different color skin, it doesn't mean they should be treated the way they were. They are people just like you and me, the connection between the beauty pageant winners and losers, and the slaves and people discriminated against, is that they were judged on the way they were looked, not on if they were good or bad people.

Ideas for Writing

1. Chemistry class, Junior year of high school, was the worst class I've ever taken. I have no idea why I took this class, but I wish I didn't. This teacher was the worst teacher I've ever had for any subject ever. The class started off at a good pace, I had a decent grade of a B on my progress report... then, when report cards came out, I had a sold D+, yahoo. So, being the great student I am, I attended extra help, without any good results. At the end of the term, I had the same grade as the term before, D+. By then, it wasn't just me getting bad grades in this class, and half of the class was staying for extra help, and still getting bad grades. Two terms later, after attending extra help for 5 months, I had a final grade of a D, and so did the rest of the class. I still wonder why she never slowed down the class, helped us out a little, or did anything at all to help our grades increase.

2. One experience that I exceeded my expectations in would be getting into college. With my grade from Chemistry a D on my transcripts I didn't think I would be getting into any of the colleges I applied to, but with some luck, I did get into all of them, including my number one choice, Westfield. The significance of this experience is to try harder in school, so you don't have to worry about your college career, applying to college, and then getting in.