Letters Evaluating Writing Dear Student

¶ … Letters Evaluating Writing

Dear Student #1:

I have read your essay and I am trying my best to find something positive to say about it, but that is difficult. It is obvious to me that English is not your first language because of some of your choices of words, the way you mix tenses, and by the way that you construct your sentences. However, I realize that language proficiency is different from writing skills; therefore, I would like to suggest that you continue your English language studies and I would lie to commend you for being able to express yourself verbally and write in English. I will try to restrict my peer-review commentary to the other aspects of your writing that are not related to your relative fluency in the English language.

The introductory paragraph of your essay is very confusing. First it talks about a stage of life where, as you say, nothing was very important to you. Then you mention that you had a passion for speed, but after that, you return back to your attitude about life and spirituality. Next, you mention various ways that you acted recklessly and irresponsibly in your driving habits and you refer to your accident. However it is confusing to follow your organization and your choice of description because you continually shift back and forth between different ideas and you change back and forth from a past-tense description of an event that already occurred in your life to a present-tense description of the events leading up to the accident before it occurred.

In that regard, I would simply suggest that you try to express one idea at a time, such as by devoting an entire paragraph to one idea, such as by describing your attitude about life before your accident in your introductory paragraph. You might describe your confused sense of self and of your life purpose in a second paragraph. You could detail your irresponsible driving habits and love for speed in a third paragraph, and then maybe provide the reader with a description of how your accident happened, how you and others reacted, and how it changed your beliefs and values. Finally, you could conclude your essay with an explanation of why you believe you used to be so irresponsible; why you think your accident changed you; what you may have learned about yourself (and others) in the process; how you have changed your life since you recovered; whether you have succeeded in living up to those changes; and how you might advise other young people who might be experiencing the same thoughts and feelings today that you describe in yourself before your accident.

To my mind, all of those issues are matters of subject matter organization that are not dependent on language fluency at all. Therefore, if I were to provide the most constructive criticism possible, I might suggest that the next time you write an essay like this one, you might try to organize your thoughts in your native language first and create a full-sentence outline, also in your native language. That would enable you to move your ideas around until you arranged them in a logical and chronological order. I would suggest translating those ideas into English only after you first go through that process of organizing and structuring all of your ideas.

Finally, I would suggest that you try to be very careful about maintaining the same voice (i.e. first-person, second-person, and third-person); that you maintain either active voice or passive voice; and that you try to be very careful to write your entire essay in the present tense or that you write your entire essay in the past tense.

Essay # 2 -- Peer review Letter

Dear Student # 2:

Your essay does a very nice job of setting the sad tone that you seemed to be trying to create. However, I would be more careful about choosing the words and the metaphors that you employ to do this, because you have a tendency to use overly dramatic images that do not really fit the story that well. I also noticed that you do not provide a clear introduction that gives the reader a clear indication of the major themes and direction of your essay. You have described the circumstances of your birth in both the present tense and in the past tense, so I would remind you of the importance of selecting one or the other and then sticking to that choice throughout your essay.

The organization of your essay is also somewhat confusing because you seem to shift back and forth between a narrative description of your birth and of your family's history and of the philosophical (and historical) perception of the importance of gender in Chinese society. Your use of the dramatic scene from a movie does illustrate your point nicely as does your explanation of the Chinese family values and beliefs about gender norms and values.

However, your essay seems to lack logical organization because it continually shifts back and forth between narrative descriptions and historical and sociological commentary. In that regard, I would suggest that are two or three specific ways of organizing this essay differently in a manner that would be very helpful to the reader. First, I might have started out by discussing the Chinese beliefs about gender, followed by the example in the movie. Then, I might have shifted to the narrative description of the circumstances of your birth and your life to illustrate the way that those values and norms affected you and your family.

Second, I might have started out with the scene from the movie, followed by an explanation of Chinese cultural and sociological beliefs and values about gender. Then, (again), I would have demonstrated how those concepts affected your family and your life. Third, I might have started out with your life and family history (as you did), but I would have stayed on that topic and fully explored it before moving on. Next, I would have provided a general explanation of Chinese culture and society to explain the circumstances that you introduced earlier in connection with your own life history. Finally, I might have provided the dramatic illustration by using the example from the movie afterwards. Regardless of which method you choose, I believe the most important thing would be to make sure that you fully discuss each concept before moving to another idea and that you try to avoid going back and forth between them.