Kate's Post

Kate Scott

May 26, 2009

Mr. Salsich

English 9

Comfort:

An Essay on a Poem and my Life

One simple basic need that humans seek is comfort.  In the poem "Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth finds his comfort in his memories.  I can imagine that in five years  I will also  feel such comfort in my memories from Pine Point.  

In "Tintern Abbey", Wordsworth talks about taking comfort in the memories of his times spent at Tintern Abbey.  A beautiful mountain side village where he spent time.  Upon his return, though glad to be back, he quickly realized he never left.  Wordsworth, after an absence of five years while traveling, has kept the memories alive by using them to lift his spirits.  In his "hours of weariness" he thought back to the comforting memories from Tintern Abbey.  When Wordsworth uses the words, "Tranquil restoration" he is referring to his sense of peace that comes from these memories and are probably "the best portion of a goods man's life".  He also refers to memories that are not physical but "acts [o]f kindness and love".  These memories expressed his overall feelings he had at Tintern Abbey.  

Five years from now when I visit Pine Point I'm sure the comfort that I have experienced in these walls will come back.  Comfort will come to me in different ways. Seeing familiar faces throughout the campus, visiting the fields, will all remind me of my time at Pine Point.  As I travel through the hallways, memories will flood back, and they will bring a sense of comfort that I had for 12 years.  My memories will always be with me whether I am physically there or not.  Like Wordsworth, my memories can rejuvenate (FAST) me when the pressures of everyday life gets to me.  When I'm not meeting with success I can shut my eyes and go back to when I was racing down a field in field hockey, hearing the cheers from the crowd, feeling the warm sun, as I score a goal (PURPOSEFUL REPETITION).  Comfort, a basic emotion, that all humans need and long for, is easily in my grasp (APPOSITIVE).

Throughout a human's life they search for the comfort that Wordsworth speaks of in his poem.  Not many people are as fortunate as I to have had the opportunity to attend a school that created such memories and provided so much comfort.  Wordsworth points out that comfort can be found in memories from places visited long ago.  His message will help me throughout my life when I'm seeking and in need of comfort.   

SE:F ASSESSMENT-

1.  This year I have been trying to make my writing more graceful.  

2.  I think this essay is much more graceful then my past essays.  I worked very hard on it, and it payed off.  

3.  I had trouble on making sure my tools are correct.  

Kimo Gray
5/28/09
English9
Mr. Salsich
Memories are Cerebral Storage Boxes Stacked with Emotion:
An essay on change

I’m not good with change. It’s not the big changes that affect me; I have moved a dozen times now, and every time, I can accept it. Change is hard, but things like the new school, or parental job relocations just make sense to me. No, it’s the little things that bother me, like haircuts, or momentary computer frustrations. Change affects us all in different ways, be them big or small. But when change is multiplied by time, an equation is given that often yield strange, frightening, and oddly reflective results.

Though life is always moving, always eager to shift from one phase to the next, we all have a constant companion; change. In William Wordsworth’s Poem, “Tintern Abbey,” he speaks about returning to a church that he has not visited for five years. The church is ruined by King Henry VII’s men, and he reflects on its changes, such as the overgrowth, the fades from the sun, and the vibe of emptiness it gives off. Here his childhood memories of the church are replaced with this new alien one. Wordsworth himself reflects on how five years have changed him. He is different from the boy swimming in the nearby river Wye, saying, “That time is past/ And all its aching joys are now no more…other gifts/ Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, abundant recompence.” Wordsworth’s life has changed much since the last visit; he has lost some things but gained “abundant recompence.” One of the greatest human characteristics is the ability to notice any change, be it a new shirt, a different tone, or even an abnormal emotional response. But it can be hard to notice change in oneself. For Wordsworth, this great chapel, whose disguised beauty does not go unnoticed for him, inspires him to reflect on his life, and what those five years have brought for him.

Five years is a long time, a time to change, a time to grow, and a time to reflect on times past. Though important to me, in five years time it will not be the walls of Pine Point school that I have missed the most, but rather the people and the memories I have made there. To revisit after a few years would be nice, and would bring a sense of quiet comfort, but also one of emptiness, as I know this place will never again be the same. Five years is a long time for me to change, but I can’t expect the school to remain as it is today. Without the people I remembered there, the trip back would seem almost lonely, wading through the memories like a zombie visiting a cemetery. But if I was to see a familiar face, then the situation would change to cold lifeless shapes to a warm welcoming home. It is interesting to note how little a teacher can change even in the course of five years. Five years is a long time, and though the people I love will change, the foundation of our memories will stand tall for many years to come, and that in itself is comfort enough.
In the Poem, “The Writer,” by Richard Wilbur, change is presented as a form of cerebral metamorphosis. He speaks of his daughter, as she clacks away at the typewriter, her creative ideas flowing out. But all of a sudden, she stops. No sound is heard, just the silent thoughts bouncing around in her head. It is now that a clatter rises up again, but as soon as it starts, it dies down. This girl is expressing developmental change even now, as her ideas moves back and forth, and her mind grows. Though she does not know it, when she thinks “the whole house thinks,” and when she writes again, the sound is beautiful. Here, change is not frightening, but rather a small-scale mechanism that progresses your life, one step at a time.

I find myself going over and over again my previous statement, “the big changes [don’t] affect me.” But when I think about my upcoming move, I know that this is a lie. Maybe one time in the past I would have been fine with this, but not today. Today I am changed, and I know that I don’t want to move. But change is a force not to be reckoned with, and maybe in a few years I will look at this again and question my thoughts. But right now, I don’t want to change. I want to live my life as Kimo from Connecticut. But I understand that moving on is inevitable, eventually I will become Kimo from New Jersey, and my previous life will dwell in memories. And for all that I am losing, for all the sacrifices I am making; I know there is a silver lining, my “abundance recompence.” New beginnings are difficult, endings are harder, but it is a circle that will never change, and that affects us all.


1. 5/28/09

2. I have been working on organizing my paragraphs and omitting unnecessary words.

3. Some strong points I see is my paragraph about Pine Point. I also think that contradicting myself works well for this.

4. I think that my final paragraph is a little confusing. I also think I may have been making a bit of a stretch in the final body paragraph.

Parker Verhoeff
English 9
Mr. Salsich
5.26.09

Awesome:
An Essay on the Impacts of Awe

Awe is something few people experience in their lifetimes. The word "awesome," meaning full of awe, is now taken for granted and doesn't have half the impact it did a century ago. William Wordsworth and Richard Wilbur are some of the lucky ones; they expressed awe in their poems. Hopefully, I'll experience the same feelings Wordsworth and Wilbur had when I return to my school.

William Wordsworth is in true awe in his poem "Tintern Abbey." He is so taken aback by the beautiful landscape of Tintern Abbey, in northern England, that he feels the way he felt when he was younger. He pays homage to even the "unremebered pleasure[s]: such, perhaps, as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man's life." He knows that those happenings impacted him as much as his actual memories. Wordsworth treats "these beauteous forms" as if he's opening his eyes for the first time. He believes Tintern is an "awesome" place, "as is a landscape to a blind man's eye." He has seen his "Heaven." Awe can inspire anybody anywhere to do extraordinary things; it happened to inspire William Wordsworth to write seven pages of breathtaking poetry.

I am graduating Pine Point School this year, and if I were to return in the future It would bring back feelings much like Wordsworth. It would be on a much smaller scale, but It will be nostalgic-FAST nonetheless. I have been going to this school for five long years; all of my middle school years. If I was to return to Pine Point in five years it will bring back all of my memories from an important period in my life. In five years I will already be a sophomore in college, and I probably would have forgotten most of my time at this school. But if I was to return, it will bring back those wonderful memories. Like Wordsworth, I also will be thankful for the things as small as a "thank you," or a "your welcome." William Wordsworth returned to "Tintern Abbey" after a number of years and he truly was in awe, and I believe I will feel similar when I return to my middle school, the most crucial time in my life.

Richard Wilbur's "The Writer" is a poem about a father in awe of his daughter. He just listens to her type away, on her typewriter and he realizes that "her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy." He wishes her a "lucky passage" for the rest of her life. Like Wordsworth, it reminds him of an extraordinary memory. One of a starling, crashing into the window, becoming trapped in the same room his daughter was typing that very moment. "How for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door, /We watched the sleek, wild, dark/And iridescent creature/Batter against the brilliance," just like he's watching his daughter battle the typewriter to complete her story. But he's not just watching her complete her story; he's watching her grow up. He's watching her, as he did the starling, "[clear] the sill of the world."-Parallelism It's amazing when you get to watch something progress from the first crash into your home, learn from their mistakes, and finally soar out into the vast, awe-inspiring, wilderness that is our world-3-Action Verb.

Both William Wordsworth and Richard Wilbur have been in a state of awe. I will soon be, given five years time. Whether it's just the landscape, your daughter, or your school, awe is something worth expressing. It is a rare thing that anybody, and everybody should be able to experience.

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Self Assessment

5.28.09- A Five Paragraph Essay on the Effects of Awe

I have been working on omitting any unnecessary words. Also, I am trying not to be vague in my essays.

I believe all of my special tools were correct and apt. My concluding paragraph brought everything together as well.

I might have been a little too repetitive with the word "awe." There also might have been some comma issues that I missed.

GRADE: B

Scarlet's Last Essay

Scarlet Caruso
English 9
Hamilton Salsich
5/27/09

Revisiting Memories:
An Essay on William Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and My Life

How would you feel if you came back to a place that was once so important to you after five years of not seeing it? Would you look back in anger at all the moments it made you upset or would you think of all the happy memories that took place there? William Wordsworth and I would think about how much we’ve done since we’ve seen our place. We would look back on our places and think of all the memories created in this small place in this huge world.

Wordsworth, over-looking Tintern Abbey, thinks about all the things he’s done since seeing this place. (PARTICIPLE) He looks back on when he last visited and finds it strange that he has not seen his special place in so long. Wordsworth, amazed by the passing of time, says, “Five years have past; five summers, with the length of five long winters!” William Wordsworth thinks of all he has done since seeing this beautiful place. “Through a long absence,” he finds that he has done so much in this place as well. He has thought deeply, appreciated fully at Tintern Abbey and will never forget the memories. He has experienced, “hours of weariness, sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” Wordsworth has done so much in this small oasis (FAST) that maybe it’s more than he’s done in the entire world.

If I were to come back to Pine Point School in 5 years I would wonder where the time has gone. I would wonder how so much has happened since I left one of the most influential places in my life. I would look back on Graduation and say, "Was that really five whole years ago?" I would ponder the feelings I had on the day I departed and think about the things I have done after I left the place I love. The place I would go to first would be in the very middle of the boy's lacrosse field. I would sit there and think of all the amazing things that I had done in this very spot. I had cried there, laughed there, fought there, made-up there. (PARALLELISM) It's funny that I have done more things in that three- foot spot than I have done anywhere else in the world. If I were to come back to Pine Point in 5 years I would sit down in one of my favorite places in the whole wide world and wonder, "Where has the time gone??"

Seeing your favorite place for the first time in five years could be a disorienting experience but if you look at it right it’s a wonderful time to reflect. It could be a time to think about time itself. William Wordsworth finds that, “through a long absence,” you can remember all the wonderful things you did there and the memories that taught you some important lessons. An old place can be a fresh reminder of how we learn and how time passes so incredibly quickly.

Scarlet's Essay

Scarlet Caruso
English 9
H. Salsich
May 19, 2009

A Stone, a Passage, a Young Life:
An essay relating a passage to my life and a rock

How can a stone, a passage, and a young girl’s life be alike? All of these things are trying to be wealthy and enjoy life. They all believe that true wealth is knowledge. The girl, in her life, wishes to be more like the stone because it lives like the passage says to.

A illustrious (FAST) writer, Rainer Maria Rilke’s, second passage really stands out to me because he makes statements that I truly agree with. (APPOSITIVE) Rilke is completely correct when he says that hands would be better for eyes. Our hands are so constantly interested in the things around us. They are, “so ready to grasp” and they would serve much better as eyes for those of us who would like to see everything. Another reason this passage interests me is because Rilke says, “we could truly acquire wealth.” In this passage he says that abundance (FAST) is not money and cars, but knowledge. Knowledge of the world around us is true wealth. I couldn’t agree more with the things stated in this wonderful passage!

This passage relates to my life in many ways. For example, I often try to look at little things and appreciate them just as my hands enjoy the tiny stone I play with at the beach. I would enjoy looking with my hands because then I could really see. In my life I try to remind myself to look at things as if my eyes were my hands, “so willing to relinquish all things.” Another way this passage relates to my life is the way Rilke thinks of wealth. His point of view reminds me of my father’s who often tells me, “I could live in a cardboard box and I’d be rich as long as I had my family.” He thinks of wealth in a different way than most people do. He does not think of a large house with a huge pool, he thinks of love as wealth as Rilke thinks of knowledge. This passage relates to my life because Rilke thinks about life, thinks about wealth, thinks about seeing, thinks about family the same way I do. (TETRACOLON CLIMAX)

The stone in the English classroom reminds me of this passage in many ways. For example, the garden stone truly sees everything with no eyes, feeling it’s way through life. (PARTICIPLE) It does not watch the birds and squirrel but feels them go through daily life. If we could all feel the life around us then we, “could truly acquire wealth.” Another way the garden stone relates to Rilke’s passage is the way it let’s things go. The stone allows people to walk on it and then let them go. The stone let’s, “everything pass through [it’s] grasp.” The stone in a way is smarter than us all, in the way that it feels life and let’s things go.

In a strange way a rock, a fourteen-year-old, and a passage by a famous writer are a lot alike. They all wish to be wealthy in different ways than most people. They all like to see like their hands feel, with curiosity and interest. Did you ever think that this different group would have a lot in common? (ANTITHESIS) Well they do!

Kimo's Essay 5.21.09

Kimo Gray
5.17.09
English9
Mr. Salsich

Slave to Change
An Essay on the Transformation of Life


Change begets change begets change begets change (Tetracolon Climax). Whether we like it or not, things are constantly changing, be it the spring flowers or the inconvenient homework assignment. There is no easy way to map life’s system, no math equation to crunch the numbers and interpret our pre-determined fate, which is always more change. Change brings change but also opportunity, the opportunity to utilize what life has thrown at us and delve down new paths. One of the greatest 20th Century German poets(Appositive Phrase), Rainer Maria Rilke, expresses that “Life is transformation,” and we don’t have a choice in that matter.

It starts out as liquid, superheated and withheld under the earth, always shifting, anyways changing, always eager to escape its subterranean prison. And then, in a seismic moment it is free, and in time will solidify into a shape quite unlike its form today. From there, the millions of years will transform it further, until one fateful day it is excavated and chiseled into its slate like form, the garden stone. The garden stone is similar to us all, on the way it transforms throughout its lifetime. In its modern form, it is only reminiscent of a time long gone, when it was those ripples of superheated liquid. All of us change throughout our life, infant, toddler, child, teenager, adult, elder. These are the roles that we play in our life, each one different from the next. The stone itself is a constant to us, as though we change every day the stone life is so long that we will never see it change, only as a miraculous garden stone.

In Rilke’s passage, he talks about the difference between hands and eyes. With hands, we want to hold on to things and preserve them in our grasp so that they will be ours. “We do not acquire wealth,” Rilke states, “by letting something remain and wilt in our hands.” When studied, hands can be the window into the soul, from tapping on a desktop due to an annoyance, to holding someone in a loving embrace, to desperately hold on to the constants in our life, in a vain effort to negate transformation. In contrast, our eyes grant us the ability to fleet over things, to acknowledge their existence without the need to cling. Rilke describes the eyes as “so willing to grasp, so willing to relinquish,” for when our eyes see something that transfixes us we gaze and ponder into its magic, but in any instant our gaze can be swept away in an effort to experience the whole world. Though featured in a similar existence, the hands and eyes present different experiences, from a never ending grasp to a fleeting glance.

In my life I can relate to the simple message, “Life is transformation,” found in Rilke’s passage(Participial Phrase). Recently I learned that I would be moving to New Jersey early this summer. I have moved many times before this, but this has been the longest I have ever stayed in one place, and I appreciate all the good times I have had here. Though painful, I understand, as life has been difficult for my family lately, and perhaps this change will be a good thing. One thing I try to focus on is the constants in my life, such as my little brother. But even in all his love change can be found, as every day his body grows a little and his personality grows a lot. I know that with four kids in the house things will always be a whirlwind, but I know one thing will never change; the love that my family shares. Life is transformation, and for that it stinks, but it is from the ashes of an old life a new one emerges.

I often wonder about the great debate, Free Will vs. Destiny. Personally I would like to believe in Free Will, or the idea that you, and you alone determine your life. But on the opposite end of the spectrum is destiny, a term often romanticized and implying an all-controlling higher power. If anything, life itself is this higher power, this god that spontaneously hurl’s change in our path, like a bowling ball towards our neat little bowling pins. But I believe we are smarter than the bowling ball, and abstractly choose to have our hypothetical bowling pins turn to steel or to simply get up and walk away. We have no control over the what, when, where, or how of change, but what we do control is how it can affect us (Antithesis). For while “Life is transformation,” we are free to be whoever we want to be. The choice is ours, and while we may just be on a collision course with whatever crazy shenanigan life has up next for us, we will always have the free will to decide who we are. I think that’s a fair compromise.


Self-Assesment

1. Kimo Gray 5.21.09

2. I am working on omitting unnecessary words. I am also working on finding simple errors.

3. I think that my concluding paragraph is good. I also think that I used most of the tools well.

4. I think my first body paragraph may have been a bit aloof. I;m also unsure about my tetracolon climax,

Parker Verhoeff

English 9

Mr. Salsich

5.19.09

Rilke and the Rock:

An Essay on a passage, a rock and my beliefs

Rainer Maria Rilke is one of the greatest German poets of our time. He writes about letting go, and how our hands differ from our eyes. It relates back to Naomi Shihab Nye, William Wordsworth, and their poems. This exquisite-FAST passage relates to a garden stone and my beliefs as well.

In a passage written by Rainer Maria Rilke, he discusses the difference between your eyes and hands. He writes, "Seeing is for us the most authentic possibility of acquiring something," explaining that the only information we need can be seen with our eyes-Participial Phrase (Closer). Only when we see something is when we can truly "acquire something." Rilke then writes, "If God had only made our hands to be like our eyes - so ready to grasp, so ready to relinquish things." Our hands tend to hold on to things more than we need to. Our eyes are free to flit boundlessly over the landscape without having to hold anything to weigh them down. We can absorb as much information from seeing than grabbing, holding, lingering, and keeping-Tetracolon climax. We should not let things stay with us longer than needed, instead, "[let] everything pass through [our] grasp as if through the festive gate of return and homecoming."-Antithesis

Gray and dull, yet hard and strong, a simple garden stone takes Rilke's philosophy to heart-Appositive Phrase (opener). It does not need to keep anything in it's grasp. It can "move forward, now [it is] sturdy and strong" , even though it experiences more than we will ever know. They started out underneath the earth's crust as one thick sea of molten lava, but then it was thrust up above in various places around the world to harden. The massive rock was then broken up by glaciers, and the pieces were distributed all over this planet. Though they still are in our gardens, driveways, and all over the ground, much smaller than they originally were, but still there nonetheless. They have and always will remain to serve us, no matter what. They will stay as a token for us, to touch the true history that is a rock.

I completely agree with Rilke. I believe letting go is more efficient way of going about things, and impacts you greater as well. It makes me think back to Nye's poem "Adios", and how you should be remembered for the way you say good bye, rather than the way you say hello. Also, this passage reminds me of William Wordsworth's poem "Tintern Abbey," and how it's the little things that you should be grateful for the most, even if their so minuscule-FAST you can't even recall them. For Rilke, letting go is part of life. However, once you have let go, that occurrence seems to stay with us. So Rilke explains, "Once out of our hands [...] we should keep nothing of them but the courageous morning melody that hovers and shimmers behind their fading steps." When you let go, you should experience the a weight being lifted off of your chest. You have to remember, "For property is poverty and fear; only to have possessed something and to have let go of it means carefree ownership!"

This passage is an interesting way of looking at this popular subject. It is something that I believe as well. How letting go should not be looked at as a negative, but as a positive. Our eyes are lucky not to have to worry about possessions, because their free to see with nothing holding them back.
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SELF-ASSESSMENT

A Five Paragraph Essay on Rilke's Passage

I have been continually working on comma issues. I am trying not to be vague in my essays as well.

All my special tools seem to be correct and apt. I utilized both short, and long quotes form rilke's passage very well.

There might be some comma issues that I didn't catch. Also I might have been too reptitive with the phrase "letting go."

GRADE: B+