example essays

Sample 1:The Gloom RoomOctober often looks and feels dreary because school is by then in full swing. Today, a rainy Thursday, is no different. What makes it worse is that I am forced to sit in my writing class on the second floor of Boylan Hall at Brooklyn College and write a theme. It is no wonder that a shadow of gloom hangs over the things and the people that surround me in this roomAs I look around, I see that the surroundings are old and depressing.] There is a broken brown chair beside the teacher‟s desk; no one will sit in it for fear of leaning back and toppling over onto the floor. There is also a mahogany bookcase with a missing shelf, and all the books are piled on the bottom in a stack of blue and yellowed covers, instead of standing in a straight row. This ugly desk of mine is filled with holes and scratches because other impatient students, no doubt, lost their tempers and took out their anger on the wooden surface. As I rub my hand across it, I feel coldness. Even the gray walls and the rumble of thunder outside reflect the atmosphere of seriousness as we write our first theme of the semester. When some air sails through an open window beside me, there is the annoying smell of coffee grounds from a garbage pail not far off. (That smell is a perfect indication of our discomfort?)Aside from the unattractive surrounding, [the people around me show this mood of tension and displeasure. ] Mary, a slim blonde at my right, chews the inside of her lower lip. I can see by the way her forehead is wrinkled that she is having quite a bit of trouble. Because only one or two words in blue ink stand upon her clean white page, she looks around the room fearfully for some new ideas. Slouching in his seat in the third row, David Harris nibbles each finger of each hand. Then he plays with alack collar button that stands open on the top of his red plaid shirt. The tension gets to him too; drops of perspiration run slowly down his cheeks. I hear a thump as he uncrosses his legs and his scuffed shoe hits the floor. A painful cough slices the air from behind me. I hear a woman‟s heels click from the hall beyond the closed door and a car engine whine annoyingly from Bedford Avenue. All these signs of gloom do not help my mood at all.These last few painful moments make me wonder if what my friends told me about college was all true. Where are all the beautiful girls I‟m supposed to be meeting and talking to in every room? Where are the freedom and relaxed atmosphere my friends bragged about? I‟m supposed to be enjoy ing myself instead of suffering! Everybody seems to have forgotten that college is hard work too. My first day in writing class proves that delight and pleasure often disappear when assignments are due!How many examples does the writer use to support the topic sentence?_________________________________________________________ __________●What are they?_________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ ______________________________●Have you noticed the words and expressions the writers uses to introduce theexamples? Do you think they are helpful in cohesion of the paragraph?Sample 2:Changing What We CanMany situations are out of our control, yet we can make ourselves sick feeling angry or frustrated about them. Sometimes we can achieve peace of mind by simply changing our attitude.For instance, Fred used to waste hours of his life being angry at this cit y‟s train system. He must rely on the trains to get to work and to school each day. The trains are rarely on time, and when they finally do arrive, they creep along the track, stopping for five or ten minutes at every station before they begin creeping again. They are physically uncomfortable besides----freezing on cold days and sweltering on hot days. Fred used to get so angry at the train system every morning that his whole day would be ruinedWhen Fred finally admitted that the train system was creating a serious problem i n his life, he thought long and hard about how to solve it. He decided he would have to change his attitude. He stopped expecting the trains to come on time and started expecting the opposite. He stopped thinking how unfair it was that the trains were slow, cold, or hot and started assuming that they would always be late, always uncomfortable. These were simply the facts.Fred‟s changed attitude transformed the situation. It did not solve the train‟s lateness or slowness, but it did solve the problem of his pointless anger.Sample 3:Learning from FailureBy Tojy MandapamWhen failure knocks you down, will you have the guts to get up and get going? Or will you give up? Achieving success can be difficult. At times, distractions, delays and defeats discourage everyone. Giving up seems better than going on. But the principle of rising after each fall to try again applies to all struggles.History informs us that stories of success are also stories of great failures. Takethe young Winston Churchill as an example. He did not exhibit signs of greatness as a child. He hated mathematics and, at Ascot School, he had to be frequently caned by the principal. When he changed his school to Brighton, his reputation as a dunce followed him. The story goes that the ladies running the school were so relieved when Churchill left that they declared a half-holiday. At Harrow, he failed the entrance examination. He also failed the entrance test to Sandhurst Military College twice and scraped through on the third attempt. He was undeterred by these failures and went on to become the greatest Prime Minister England ever had.At school, Albert Einstein was so dull that he was called "Dull Albert". His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams." He did not even pass the entrance examination to get into Zurich Polytechnic School. Only in the fourth attempt did he make the grade. Today Einstein is regarded as the architect of the Nuclear Age.Charles Darwin, father of the Theory of Evolution, was voted the "dullest boy of the year". He had to give up a medical career and his father told him, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching." In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, "I was considered by all my masters and by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect." And yet every student knows about Darwin today.The greatest novelist of the 19th Century, Sir Walter Scott, was given the title of "king of blockheads" and was made to wear a dunce cap for a whole month. Yet this man rose up in life to write the classic, Ivanhoe. His poems are a class apart.Have you heard of Lord Keynes? When at school he failed so many times in one subject that the principal had to send for his parents. And what subject did he fail in? Economics. Virtually every year in college, he got the lowest marks in economics. Yet he is now considered as the father of modern economic theories.These men were like any other students. The only difference was that every time they failed, they bounced back. This is called failing forward, rather than backward. You learn and move forward. Ask yourself after every failure: what did I learn form this experience? Learn from your failure and keep going.Some things take a lot of time. Staying on course can keep you focused on whatyou need to do. Like Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Walter Scott and Lord Keynes, you may have to persevere in the face of almost inevitable defeat. You must remember that your goals should be moral and reasonable. But if your goals are both, then stay on course. Don‟t quit. A second effort or a third or a fourth pays off.1. How many examples does the writer use to develop the thesis statement?2. What specific examples does the writer give to support the general statement?History informs us that stories of success are also stories of great failures. Take the young Winston Churchill as an example. He did not exhibit signs of greatness as a child. At Harrow, he failed the entrance examination. He also failed the entrance test to Sandhurst Military College twice and scraped through on the third attempt. He was undeterred by these failures and went on to become the greatest Prime Minister England ever had. At school, Albert Einstein was so dull that he was called "Dull Albert". He did not even pass the entrance examination to get into Zurich Polytechnic School. Only in the fourth attempt did he make the grade. Today Einstein is regarded as the architect of the Nuclear Age. Have you heard of Lord Keynes? When at school he failed so many times in one subject that the principal had to send for his parents. And what subject did he fail in? Economics. Virtually every year in college, he got the lowest marks in economics. Yet he is now considered as the father of modern economic theories. These men were like any other students. The only difference was that every time they failed, they bounced back, learned from their failure and move forward. Like Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and Lord Keynes, you may have to persevere in the face of almost inevitable defeat. Don‟t quit.A second effort or a third or a fourth pays off.Sample 4:Familiarity Breeds BoredomThe US Fortune magazine once posed to its reader such a question in a questionnaire: “If you were to choose again, what would you like to be?” “I‟d like to run a grocery store in the countryside,” a high-ranking official in the military responded. “My dream,” said a woman minister, “is t o go down to the beach of Costa Rica and open a small inn.” A mayor indicated that his desire is to start afresh as a photographer. The Minister of Labor preferred to become the manager of a beverage company. The answers from several businessmen, however, were by far the most bizarre. One wanted to become a woman; another wanted to be a dog; one even indicated his wish to withdraw from the human world and simply transform into a plant. People in other trades answered the same question in various ways. Some wished to run for President. Others wanted to be diplomats, and still others cherished the idea of working in a bakery. Whatever they set their mind on, none was willing to remain what they are should new choice arise.People are forever in a dilemma. They live a fairly good life, and their circumstance are as good as can be, but from time to time they grow tired of all this. One can hardly attribute this to mentality, arising from life‟s monotony and lake of passion, to insatiability on the part of humans.I used to envy a married couple who lived in a forest, where groves of fir trees and bamboos flourished, with quite and secluded cobble stone paths meandering through the woods, birds chirping beautifully and flowers permeating fragrance. Yet when they realized that they had unwittingly become an object of admiration owing to the unique location of their house, they were truly perplexed. In their eyes, there was little in the forest which deserved to be seen or made such a fuss about when compared to the fun and abundant life a metropolis can provide!That experience told me that when one becomes too familiar with something, one stops enjoying it. The couple had long been used to everything within their sight---the trees and the flowers, breeze and the moon--- that those were no longer regarded as natural wonders but simply a constituent of their unvarying life.During a life's journey, the worst thing that can happen to a person is perhaps not poverty nor misfortune, but an unutterable, nagging sense of languor. What may have moved him so much, no longer does. What he once found so charming has lost its charm. Even things that infuriated him so much fail to make a single stir in his heart! Such being the case, the person truly needs to go elsewhere to look for different scenery.Sample 5:Darkness at NoonM. KrentsBlind for birth, I have never had the opportunity to see myself and have been completely dependent on the image I create in the eye of the observer. To date it has not been narcissistic.Ther e are those who assume that since I can‟t see，I obviously also cannot hear. Very often people will converse with me at the top of their lungs，enunciating each word very carefully. Conversely, people will also often whisper，assuming that since my eyes don‟t work，my ears don‟t either.For example，when I go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for assistance to the plane，he or she will invariably pick up the phone，call a ground hostess and whisper：“Hi，Jane，we‟ve got a 76 here.＂I have concluded that the word“blind" is not used for one of two reasons：Either…they fear that if the dread word is spoken，the ticket agent‟s retina will immediately detach，or they are reluctant to inform me of my condition of which I may not have been previously aware.On the other hand，others know that of course I can hear，but believe that l can‟t talk. Often，therefore，when my wife and I go out to dinner，a waiter or waitress will ask Kit if he would like a drink" to which I respond that“indeed he would"．This point was graphically driven home to me while we were in England. I had been given a year‟s leave of absence from my Washington law firm to study for a diploma in law degree at Oxford University. During the year I became ill and was hospitalized. Immediately after admission，I was wheeled down to the X-ray room. Just at the door sat an elderly woman-elderly I would judge from the sound of her voice.“What is his name?＂the woman asked the orderly who had been wheeling me.“What‟s your name?＂the orderly repeated to me.“Harold Krents,”I replied.“Harold Krents,＂he repeated.“When was he born?＂“When were you born?”“November 5，1944，＂I responded.“November 5，1944，＂the orderly intoned.This procedure continued for approximately five minutes at which point even my saint-like disposition de serted me.“Look,” I finally blurted out，“this is absolutely ridiculous. Okay，granted I can‟t see，but it‟s got to have become pretty clear to both of you that I don‟t need an interpreter.”“He says he doesn‟t need an interpreter,” the orderly reported to th e woman.The toughest misconception of all is the view that because I can‟t see，I can‟t work. I was turned down by over forty law firms because of my blindness，even though my qualifications included a cum laude degree from Harvard College and a good ranking in my Harvard Law School class.The attempt to find employment，the continuous frustration of being told that it was impossible for a blind person to practice law，the rejection letters，not based on my lack of ability but rather on my disability，will always remain one of the most disillusioning experiences of my life.I therefore look forward to the day，with the expectation that it is certain to come，when employers will view their handicapped workers as a little child did me years ago when my family still lived in Scarsdale.I was playing basketball with my father in our backyard according to procedures we had developed. My father would stand beneath the hoop，shout，and I would shoot over his head at the basket attached to our garage. Our next-door neighbor，aged five，wandered over into our yard with a playmate.“He is blind" our neighbor whispered to her friend in a voice that could be heard distinctly by Dad and me. Dad shot and missed；I did the same. Dad hit the rim；I missed entirely；Dad shot and missed the garage entirely，“Which one is blind？”whispered back the little friend.I would hope that in the near future when a plant manager is touring the factory with the foreman and comes upon a handicapped and non-handicapped person working together，his comment after watching them work will be，“Which one is disabled？＂。