Essay 4

FINAL DRAFT

Madeline Essay #4

Mr.Salsich

English 9

October 20, 2009

Pleasant Company:

An Essay about Zora Neale Hurston and Me

Positive people have a magnetism that is very affecting. People who always look on the bright side attract friends like moths to an illuminated lamp. In her essay, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," Zora Neale Hurston's writing shows that she is one of these people with unyielding optimism, and I know for sure that I would have enjoyed her company. I am not always as positive as Zora Neale Hurston, but many people enjoy my company as well, especially because of my intriguing personality.

TS Had I known Zora Neale Hurston, I think she would have been the friend I would have constantly looked to for encouragement, optimism, and entertainment. SD Ms. Hurston exudes confidence.CM If I had been her friend, I would have soaked up that confidence, and glowed along with her. CM Being around Ms. Hurston would have pervaded me with self- assurance; heraplombsounds so certain and contagious in her essay. SD Ms. Hurston seems as though she can never be brought down, no matter how trying the circumstance; she never feels sorry for herself, because she is "too busy sharpening her oyster knife." CM I know I would have admired thisstubborn, inborn optimism - this ability to find good in everything. CM I think I would have always brought my complaints to her, and that she would have taken these complaints, stuffed them into the garbage bin, and sent me right out the door with a smile gleaming on my face; she would have always shown me the silver lining. SD Ms. Hurston would have made me laugh. CM She was not boring (two short sentences). CM I know, from the personality exhibited in the way she writes, that Ms. Hurston would have been singinganddancing and performing constantly, and all her entertaining (noun phrase with gerund) would have delighted me. CS If Zora Neale Hurston had been my friend, and I wish she had been, I would have never "den[ied] [myself] the pleasure of [her] company," and I know I would have relied on her talents for leaking light and golden charm everywhere she went.

My company is pleasurable because I am an interesting person, a girl with a unique personality and sometimes unusual view of the world, a girl with her head in the clouds but her eyes open wide to what is happening around her, a girl who tries to be kind and tolerant, a girl who cares about other people, and feels hurt of her own when she sees others hurting, a girl who loves nature, and would live in the forest with the animals if it were allowed, a girl who is always willing to help and willing to undertake something new or different, and a girl who is always trying to be happy with what she has. I am a realistic dreamer.

If I had known Zora Neale Hurston, she would have been my source for illuminating optimism. She supported everyone no matter what, and hersanguineoutlook gave her incredible poise. I would like to say the same thing about myself, but I am unsure, still trying to construct my confidence; perhaps I can use Ms. Hurston as a role model in helping me find the ability to give happiness to other people and the world. However, I do know one thing: Ms. Zora Neale Hurston would have been very pleasant company. Do you think I would be?

Martha's Vineyard Short Story

Madeline

Mr.Salsich

English 9

October 12, 2009

Small Strength: A Short Story Written in Martha's Vineyard

Out in deep space, in the inky black floating world, the stars watched as a lonesome meteor race through the darkness. Its flaming tail dissolved as it plummeted down into through the clouds, falling to the Earth. It tumbled into the sea. It fell slowly down, like a dropped feather, into the depths. The little meteor was rocked in the cradle of the waves for many years. When it was worn soft and smooth by the waves, the sea spit it out onto the shore.

"Look mama look!" The little boy was dressed in blue corduroy overalls, worn thin in the knees. I watched him run to his mother.

"What is it?" She stood up from the soft blanket where she had been sitting. "What did you find?"

"It's a rock!" The child gave his mother the dark ebony stone. It filled her palm with dark.

"Oh! It's beautiful, Freddy!" But the little boy was already gone, racing across the sand, and his mother's words were lost, carried away by the wind. She sighed, but also smiled, and carefully, almost respectfully, placed the rock back onto the beach, and sat back down on her blanket.

Later, after the boy and his mother had gone home, I remained perched on the sand. I had been watching the waves for hours, completely entranced. I remembered the smooth stone they had left behind. I walked over to where they had left it, bent down, and picked it up. There was something calming about the way it pressed into my hand. I held it, fingers outstretched. It was so beautiful. It was such a deep, dark black. I understood why the woman had returned it to the sand so reverently. I held the smoothness, cupped in my hands, and walked away.

That night, I lay in my bed. The crickets chirped their lullaby, and the summer night air was cool and clean, but I could not sleep. I looked at the moon. It was so perfectly round and smooth; a beautiful, smooth full moon. Just like my stone. I kept thinking about that stone, resting on my dresser across the room. It filled me with a feeling of strength. I had felt helpless for so long, and then I found that perfect stone. It had been through a lot, I could tell. The waves had battered and beaten it for so many years with its harsh and natural love. It had been scraped and bruised and broken. But when the stone emerged from all the torture of the sea, and settled on that sandy beach, it was exquisite. It had survived, and survived beautifully.

My parents did not survive the sea's battery. It was eighteen years ago this day that their small motor boat had been caught in a sudden squall. They had been scraped and bruised and broken by the angry waves. But they never emerged as my smooth stone had. I remember hearing that my parents were gone. My ears would not take the words, let alone my mind. I tried so hard to wake myself up from that dream that had gone so horribly wrong. But I haven't woken up, and I know that I never will. I, too, am trying to survive the harsh but natural love of the ocean. I know that the ocean takes, but she also gives. She has given me this stone, so serenely quiet after so many years of endless cruelty, like me in all my years of grief. The stone was helpless against those waves. My parents were helpless against them, too. My parents did not survive. I am still trying to come to terms with this nightmare. But the stone did survive. It is such a wondrous coincidence that I should find this stone, my little circle of perfect, on the anniversary of the day my parents had left me alone.

"You can survive, even if your mother and your father could not. You can be beautiful, because you are strong like the stone," the sea whispered to me as I lay tangled in the sheets. The breeze brought her words to my ears. I was suddenly flooded with peace, and I felt happy. I had not felt happy for so long. It was such a beautiful foreign place. My eyelids went heavy, and for the first time in thirteen years, I dreamt.

The next day, I returned to the beach. I smiled when I saw a different child scavenging on the shore. My face was not accustomed to this action. It had been grimacing for so long. But the pain was finally over. My little smooth stone, my dark moon, had showed me the way. I was content to walk out of the loss. I was strong, like the stone. I was free.

Out in deep space, in the inky black floating world, all the stars looked down upon the beach where a little meteor had become a symbol of strength. The stars looked down upon the girl who was now happy after so many days and nights of sorrow. The stars thanked the little boy in the corduroy overalls and his mother, who had first found the small soft piece of universe, and who had helped the human find happiness. The stars had given this meteor to the sea. The magic of the natural world had blessed the girl with small but powerful strength. They knew she could do amazing things if she could accept her loss. The stars knew they had done their job. They glowed, and they looked down. And the smooth stone was right where they left it on the beach.

Essay 3

FINAL DRAFT

Madeline

English 9

Mr.Salsich

5 October 2009

A River of Words:

An Essay about Rachel Carson's and My Own Writing Style

Rachel Carson's writing is like juice. It is thicker than water, overflowing with imagery and detailed accounts of all forms of life. Yet it is so melodious, delicious, and flowing, if you tilted the book printed with her words, they would drip off the page. My own writing is a bit different; it is like a babbling brook, full of interesting splashes, tumbling over and around similes and metaphors and alliteration.

TS Rachel Carson's writing style is descriptively lush and flowing. SD She fills each page with imagery that sweeps away the senses. CM When reading Carson's description of a pool "carpeted with green sponge," hidden in a dark, dank cavern among the rocks, the "water that was clear as glass" and "colonies of soft coral [that] were a pale apricot color" were completely visible within my mind. CM The imagery sent a surge of amazingly beautiful pictures through my head; the vision of "the pendant flowers of the hydroid Tubularia, pale pink, fringed and delicate," with "every stalk and hydranth and petal-like tentacle" waiting for the tide to return, was especially astounding. SD Carson's writing, though fascinatingly descriptive, is still very minimal. CM She does not waste words. CM Her writing is rich in color and texture, but it is never exorbitant or abstruse; it is always clear and beautiful. SD The author's style is also smooth and flowing, each word sewn cleanly together, never choppy or abrupt. CM Her style with words is so graceful, it seems as though she has poured liquid words onto the paper. CM She has the ability to pluck just the right words from her head to make a sentence placid and elegant. CS Rachel Carson pens dulcet words onto the paper, and they flow off into the reader's mind, where they compose pictures breathtaking in beauty and exquisiteness.

TS When I look at my own writing style, especially the style I have used for this essay, I notice that I often use quite a lot of figurative language, and a wide variety of sentence lengths. SD I play with words. CM I like to make my essays rhythmic, writing sentences with lilting words that carry the reader along. CM I use alliteration to capture curiosity, as in my phrases "a dark, dank cavern" and "breathtaking in beauty," and I use adjectives to transform dull words into riveting pictures that leap off the page and dance in the imagination. SD I also try to utilize the powers of similes, metaphors, and personification to bring spice into the steaming soup pot of an essay. CM For example, I described Rachel Carson's writing style by saying that "each word [is] sewn cleanly together;" in reality, it is impossible to sew words together, but, hopefully, this personification brings some flavor into an otherwise dismal description. CM Another example of my use of figurative language is found when I say "it seems as though [Carson] has poured liquid words onto the paper;" I would like to think that perhaps this simile lets the reader see words spilling from a lovely pitcher, and then the reader is not bored or disinterested. SD In addition to figurative language, I also write sentences that vary in length. CM Some are simple statements, blunt and clear. CM Others are more intricately crafted lines, with many words that sway and sing and with multiple ideas leading into each other, pushing the reader down a complicated, even convoluted, path within the mind. CS All in all, I believe my own writing style is spirited and engaging, yet still swaying and gentle.

Rachel Carson's writing is so luscious, and soft, lulling the reader to keep turning the pages. Her writing is a river, calm but mighty. My writing style is defined by a heap of figurative language and sentence variety. Carson's writing is as fluid as juice, but my writing is like soda: it is fluent and interesting, bubbling with bursts of wordplay, and, hopefully, it sticks to you.

Essay 2

FINAL DRAFT

Madeline

English 9

Mr.Salsich

4 October, 2009

Ceaseless Waves:

An Essay about Rachel Carson's "The Marginal World" and How it Relates to My Life

The shore has its own clock. Life begins and ends, tides ebb and flow, waves crash and retreat, everything happening according to the ancient schedule created at the beginning of time(loose sentence). Nature moves to the beat that began so long ago. In Rachel Carson's "The Marginal Wold," the author describes time at the shore, and I feel an enchantment akin to Carson's when I visit the sea.

TS A motif in "The Marginal World" is the endless flow of time at the edge of the sea. SD One instance of this motif can be found in Carson's description of the tides, and how they rarely reveal the author's favored cave .CM The ocean does not rush. CM It has no need to move rapidly, for it has all of eternity to pull the tides in and out;it doesn't worry about how often the magical pool is exposed. SD Time also appears when Carson describes the sea as the deep darkness from which all life emerged. CM The sea gives "a sense of creation," theclamorouswaves always declaring their status as the aquatic mother from which all land creatures were born. CM The patterns of the waves and tides seem to act as anunhurriedpendulum, continually keeping time with the natural drift of the Earth. SD The creatures of the sea show the flow of time as well. CM Carson describes how "little by little over the thousands and millions of years" miniscule changes produce organisms entirely different from their ancestors. CM Each year acts as a stepping stone for sea animals, as theycreep and crawlover time towards a newly adapted self. CS In her essay, Rachel Carson returns to the motif of time as the never-ending river that keeps the natural world floating forward.

TS The ocean has special meaning for me, just as it did for Rachel Carson. SD When I visit the sea, my eyes and ears open wider than usual, and my mind becomes more attuned to nature. CM As the first breath of salt air sweeps through me, I am more alert and ableto see all the tiny things me.CM With this alertness comes a deep sense of calm. SD The sea gives me a feeling of peace like no other place can. CM I feel in harmony with the sand and water and sky, rocked in a cradle to the rhythm of the Earth. CM I feel as though I am the wailing wind, I am the darting crab, I am the dawdling periwinkle, never rushing, and always serene.SD Time does not disappear when I come to the edge of the sea; instead, I become increasingly more aware of each second, minute, and hour that passes. CM My feeling of oneness with the Earth lets me see a different type of clock, the unhurried clock of nature, not the impatient human machine. CM The tides and the waves are the hands of the clock, the screeching gulls are the alarms, and the rocks and coves and seaweed are the mechanics; I am part of the clock, too, because I have become part of the sea. CS Visiting the sea dissolves me physically, and I float along in the eternal river of time, my senses awakened by all the life around me (loose sentence).

The ocean is immortal. The waves will never stop rolling onto the shore; the waters will never stop teeming with life. The endlessness of the sea described in "The Marginal World," by Rachel Carson, shows how time and the sea flow together like a river. When I visit the sea, I am carried away on this river; I become a part of the water; I feel the pulse of nature's tranquil clock within me.