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Chris,
I enjoyed reading your piece as you were able to draw in my head the scene and the feelings well. Your writing is very strong when it comes to the “showing-not-telling”, a writing style which I think is fundamental yet isn’t there in many other peoples works, which can often make it boring to read. The part I really like was in the second paragraph “Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high’ said the woman in the wheel chair that smiled from ear to ear but revealed no teeth”. Clear and a powerful image, something I aspire to have in my own works. You also had a lot of insights which were directly reflective of the experience you shared.
What you need to improve on however, is your grammar and spelling. There were times where I had to read your work twice to get the meaning you originally intended stuff like ” reframe” instead of refrain. A lot of the grammatical errors probably could have been removed in a read-over/edit. To improve this I would recommend two things; to one read more, the more times you see the right spellings and the grammar used correctly the easier job you’ll have of doing it yourself. The second and easier thing I’d recommend is to write your blogs on a word document first, the computer will point out the mishaps a lot better than that silly blogger spell check.
Overall I enjoyed the piece and believe that with tinkering it can be really great. Hope this helped.
John Tabor
I liked what you said here, it was clear and backed up with evidence which you referenced earlier, "I found it interesting that these people still were willing to pay the horrendous expenses of an intensive care unit, when really it would not increase their quality of life, or length, by any significant amount" this is very much a logical, utilitarian perspective. When dealing with a loved one so close to the end it’s not easy to have a logical clear mind when the alternative can bring on such emotion hardship, and often the even mention of “pulling the plug” or bringing up the idea of not having the life saving operation is taboo. And to keep this loved one on life support the false conception is that things will go back to how they were or that the family will do all they can and pay whatever costs as long as the person stays in their lives. I agree with you, Lucas, that one should keep this open almost unbiased mind (which is impossible) and that people should treat death as a fact of life and something inevitable rather than thinking it can be avoided and avoided when the reality is, as you said, would not increase their quality of life, and probably if anything, lower it for that person and those around that person.
I also enjoyed your last paragraph very much as you explained an insight you brought up before which put me off a bit because I was prepared for that dead horse to receive another beating. But rather you kept the idea fresh by giving new reasons which I also agreed with (which is always nice to read) but never realized, in fact it was so logical and insightful that I was disappointed in myself I hadn’t thought of it before.
The only quarrel I had with your homework is your concision. The last two paragraphs were great, the first two, more specifically the second, were not in fact, it could have been gone completely. The contents of what you talked about could have been understood completely without the blunt explanation. Overall your writing is great, easy to read and interesting, it flows very well and always has at least one new insight.
Hope this helped,
John Tabor
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