Writing Well Chapter 1 response
Writing Well, by Donald Hall, is an amazingly interesting textbook. I cannot remember reading an instructional manual with such brilliant imagery, flowing style, and amazing concepts. This is what education should be - interesting, provocative, and natural. However, in the first eleven pages of the text, I do not agree with two of the three analyses of Hall's examples.In the comparison of the college student's two expressions of his first impression of his dorm, Hall disregards the first passage as "sloppy - slangy and fragmentary." He praises the second passage as suspenseful and detailed and suggests that the author has "made great strides" and has "put some thought into creating a scene." I, however, find the second passage to be dull and watered-down, over-edited, and false sounding. Although the first passage could be improved by explaining where he was, what the disaster entailed, and who the funny-looking guy was, its honesty far outweighs the literary correctness of the second passage. Once again, in Hall's analysis of the narratives of Nina Ch
an, he seems to be putting too much focus on what is correct, and not enough on what makes an interesting work of literature. The impromptu theme does rely heavily on cliches in the first few sentences; however, the narrative uses so much language in avoiding the cliches that the first six paragraphs in the 13-paragraph essay - close to half of the narrative - are utterly boring and colorless. Furthermore, the "What did I see?" arrangement in paragraphs 4-6 attempts to elicit some kind of emotion and utterly fails. Assuming that these three paragraphs could be considered a short story (although it is not fictional), the story then does not meet Edgar Allen Poe's definition of the purpose of a short story: to elicit a single emotional response. Then again, it may elicit a single emotional response: boredom. Fortunately, Chan manages to turn her story around by writing a stellar climax and falling action in paragraphs 7-13. The imagery and raw emotion show the reader the nature of the situation in a way that is unfortunately not demonstrated in the first
Some common words found in the essay are:
Expression Hall, Donald Hall, Fortunately Chan, Nina Chan, Allen Poe's, Donald Hall's, single emotional response, elicit single emotional, elicit single, short story, emotional response, half narrative, single emotional, natural voice,
Approximate Word count = 718
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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