“The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.”
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
My Writing Process:
- The Awakening has been on my list of books to read for a while, so I immediately knew I wanted to write my first essay on it. During my first read, I let myself enjoy the book as if I were reading it for fun instead of for an essay. I found that this let me take in more information. During my second read-through, I underlined passages that struck my interest.
- After reviewing the parts that I found most interesting, I realized that a lot of them had to do with the sea and Edna’s death. I decided to write my essay on the role the sea plays in Edna’s suicide and throughout the rest of the story. I interpreted Edna’s suicide as an act of rebellion against the society that oppresses her throughout the story. The sea is what provides her the freedom she so desperately desires.
- With this idea in mind, I started to create my outline. I put together quotes I thought were necessary to make my argument successful and then broke them down in pieces in order to analyze them. I highlighted common words across multiple quotes in order to make connections between them in my essay.
- While writing my outline, I decided to split my essay into two large sections. The first half of my body paragraphs would be about Edna’s first major experience in the sea, and the second half would be about her suicide in the sea. This made it easier for me to organize my thoughts and write a better thesis.
- Then the time came to actually start writing the essay. This is where I ran into a number of problems. I have written so many close reading essays in my English career, but for some reason, this one was especially difficult. After I reminded myself that this was only a first draft and not the end of the world, I somehow got through it. With very little confidence, I handed in my first draft and put it in the past.
- The comments I received from peer review were really helpful and encouraging. I liked getting able to read what other students were writing about and what they found interesting in those texts. Dr. Pennington’s comments were a lot more positive than I thought they were going to be. The biggest issue I had with this paper was that my body paragraphs were too general and needed more concrete details. Another problem I had was that I used “it” too often which made my whole paper a bit vague.
- Thankfully, these changes were fairly easy to make. After one revision, I fixed my vagueness problem but still needed more evidence in my body paragraphs. That problem got fixed with a second revision, and my close reading essay was ready for my portfolio!
