posted
I posted before that I started reading Enders Game for school, and I was assigned an essay. It is over the similarities between the novel and life. This is my prewriting and I would really like some of your opinions.. if you don't mind
7th Period AP Language
Ender’s game is an intense novel about a war between two very different worlds. It is a war between humanity and an alien species called the buggers. These are very different from the wars that we know today in many ways, one of the biggest difference is who is expected to fight these wars. The soldiers are not the grown men that we are used to but children. Do not take the word children lightly though. These adolescents are well trained and very intelligent. They are taught by computer simulations that allow them to experience what a real battle would be like by going against one another. Throughout this novel you Orson Scott Card has hidden many lessons. These lessons help us understand many of the things we face throughout our lives. The students in the battle school are made to believe the teachers are then enemy. They are constantly breaking the game rules and putting all odds against the students. This becomes very annoying to the children who feel they deserve to be treated fairly, but the cruelty only seems to grow worse until finally the person it is targeted most at, Ender, decides to give up. He decides to play one more time, and after his victory he is surprised to learn the games were not games at all. It was real and he had just won the war against the buggers. It becomes obvious at this point knew Ender’s fate and their cruel attemps to make the students fail were not what they seemed to be. The teachers were preparing the students for the future so they would have the strength to overcome any obstacle. Just as these teachers showed their care for their students, our teachers do th same. We constantly question the motives behind giving us so much work. It does not seem fair to us that we are made to work so hard at school when we already have so much to, but once we get out of high school we won’t have anybody to lessen our duties. We will be expect to complete our tasks at work, to pay our bills, to feed our children. Teachers care enough to prepare us for life after high school because they want us to live to our fullest potential. Ender is used to not being the popular one on earth, and when he goes into battle school he is not surprised when he finds himself isolated from all the other children. Even though this is something he has grown accustomed to he still longs for companionship. He finds himself alone again, until he makes a friend named Alai. Unfortunately, as soon Ender’s first real friendship begins to develop he is transferred to a new army. The friendship slowly dies with time, just like many friendships do. This is not something uncommon; in fact most friendships fade away in time. Many times when we graduate high school we lose touch with our friends, its almost impossible to keep this from happening. It is sad that something so strong can just end, but can we really say that friendships ever die? They are always inside of us, yearning in our hearts, yearning to be rekindled. The world today is filled with hatred. Orson Scott Card lets us see the pain behind discrimination many times throughout his novel. Ender was his parents third, and being a third was something looked down by people. His classmates would always make fun of him and because of this he was never able to really make a friend. Once ender went to the battle school his birth status no longer mattered to anyone. Just like this, when we move on in life and get older the things we looked down on others for will not matter to us anymore, but those people will have to deal with the pain for the rest of their lives. Hate is also disguised by a person’s achievements. Many people do not want to be friends with someone who has achieved more than themselves, because it reminds them of their faults. Other people do not want to associate with someone who is unsuccessful. People tend to try to find ways to bring this person down, instead of learning from them and working hard to reach their goals. There is always someone who will be better at something than you are and it takes a real person to befriend that person and grow with them, instead of showing hate towards them. Every character and lesson in this book is based on everyday problems. Card’s ultimate goal is to teach his reader how to be successful and happy, and that sometimes being successful is not what makes you happy.It is easy to go on with your life and claim to have read a great book, but unless you take the book and apply it to your life the book has meant nothing to you. So to anyone who has read this novel take it in, us it, and share it.
Posts: 56 | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
Could you put spaces between each paragraph? That would make it a heckuva a lot easier to read.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I think it is pretty good, some grammatical and spelling needs to be fixed, but as you said, this is your pre-write. You might want to introduce the concept of third a little better. Giving a little more explanation to most of the topics and providing a little more background seems to me like it would help. It is a good essay in my opinion.
Posts: 883 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I agree with Running Bear on providing a little more background. Just one well thought-out sentence can make the Third example more powerful. What is the battle school and the game? I've read the book a couple times, and parts of it (edit: it being your essay, not the book) still made me a little confused until I reread the sentence a few times.
Another thing is you may want to reconsider the parts where you mention that OSC has 'hidden messages' in the book and that his ultimate goal for the reader is to be successful and happy. Perhaps you have a source for these, if so you can disregard what I'm about to say. OSC has mentioned that he doesn't try to put his theology and morality, hidden or otherwise, into his books. In discussing similar subjects, he has often mentioned that the story is his focus. I would say that the majority of themes that are brought up in his works are a consequence of who he is, how he tells the story, and the way you interpret it. I may be wrong on this though, so some more input from others would be helpful.
Most importantly, I honestly had a hard time with the flow of the essay. I felt like you jumped from topic to topic at random: teaching, friendship, hatred, discrimination. A lot of referencing that you made to the book doesn't include quite enough background to properly grasp the context of it. For example, when you talked about Ender and Alai's friendship, then spoke of friendships dying, you mentioned that you feel that true friendships don't die. This is an excellent opportunity to discuss that your feelings on the matter were reflected in the book when Ender and Alai meet up a couple of years later (I think it was years) for some final exams/battles and their friendship is still there.
So now my suggestions. First, and most important, get someone who hasn't read the book to sit down and read the essay with you. Ask them to be honest about the points that just make them go "hunh?" Get some more opinions on how easy the essay itself is to follow. Adding the detail and background will make the essay longer as well as adding real content- not just fluff. If you are constrained by how long your essay can be, or if it's not a really important project (for example it's just one book report out of ten that you have to do for the class) then I would suggest just exploring just one of the major themes in the book and doing it well instead of making it longer.
posted
I wouldn't say that "the teachers showed their care for the students." That's my main problem with this essay. There's a big difference in what everyday teachers do and what the teachers in Ender's Game did. The teachers in Ender's Game deceived the children, and while they succeeded in teaching them how to engage in battle, the children did not know that they actually WERE engaging in battle. This left Ender very upset and in a state of despair, so I wouldn't compare your teacher's motivations with the motivations of the battle school teachers. Hopefully, your teachers goals for you are less traumatic other that that and a few grammatical, spelling, and capitalization errors, I think you have a great start.
I also agree with Bao and Running Bear...maybe try to focus on one topic and expand and clarify it. Assume that your reader doesn't know anything about the book. That's the POV I tend to take when writing papers like this.
And welcome to the forums!!
P.S. Great idea on coming to the forum for advice. I wish I would've thought about that back in the day.
Posts: 124 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Thanks SO much. Like I said this was my prewriting and I read it over I was thinking a lot of the same things that you put down, but I was to lazy to change them. Someone else telling me will help . We actually had to pick a topic and this was mine, which explains why I didn't explain myself enough. I will go back and correct that though... Thanks for your help.
Posts: 56 | Registered: Oct 2006
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other that that and a few grammatical, spelling, and capitalization errors, I think you have a great start. ![[Wave]](graemlins/wave.gif)
