Student’s comments are in blue, instructor’s in red. It’s nice for students to get comments from both the instructor and the student on a single draft, and this is easy to do in Blackboard. Notice that the comments are such that this student is likely to take the student’s comments almost as seriously as the instructor’s.
Religion Vs. Kids
Who needs religion? There are many people in the world who do not believe in any religion. There are also parents who do not teach their children any sort of religion either. This is the dilemma brought forth in Anthony Brandt�s essay called �Do Kids Need Religion.� Brandt looks at all the particulars in religious parents and children, and non-religious parents and children. He asks questions such as; Perhaps at this point you could take his exact words from out of the book and quote it. I think it would be better since it’s coming directly from the author himself.does it deprive a child later on in life if he/she is not raised learning a particular religion, is it necessary to force religious matters on children, and also are children raised better when children are involved with religion. As one could see, this is a very controversial statement, which raises a lot of diverse questions, what kind of questions? and this dilemma could be hard to take a sideon.once you state a couple of the possible questions, I think you could briefly explain why it would be difficult to take sides. The you could say something like ” Just as it’s difficult for the reader to take sides, I also believe thst it was difficult for Brandt to choose a side. Although he makes the essay…” This is the main problem that Anthony Brandt seemed to have while writing his essay. Although he makes the essay interesting, he never directly states where he stands in the argument. The use of psychologist�s opinion in his essay also makes the article uneasy and leaves the readers left out in the cold. < Here you could state why you feel this is true.
Needs a stronger transition, like “In addition to Brandt’s difficulty in choosing a side, it seems as though he has a hard time telling a story. I think Angelique misread this (as I did at first), reading “does not know” instead of DOES know. I think you could add a transitional phrase that clues the reader into the fact that you’re going to be saying something positive instead of negative (which is what we both expected, I think). For one thing, Brandt does know how to tell a story. Brandt used a true story of his own to introduce the thesis to the readers of the essay. Perhaps giving a little more detail about what exactly happened, just a little more and make the explanation of what happened, clear. >True–if you add just a little more; you wouldn’t want to distract with too much. This vivid story about the girls who died in the fire really catches the reader�s eye because most people have gone through the misfortune of losing a friend or relative, or have heard of tragedies like the one Brandt writes about. Brandt also interviews his friends that are parents to get a good understanding of how these questions can become a controversy in society. What exactly did he ask during the interview? There’s no need to quote exactly what he asked here. The responses of the parents, he quotes in the essay. What were the quotes? Write them out and cite them. These quotes let the audience not feel so one sided on the subject. Why didn’t they feel one-sided? What words caused them to be able to pick a side? You mean “not feel that the AUTHOR was one-sided”? One could really get into the essay by reading the introduction and body of the essay. <Why? What is the main thing about these two parts of the essay that’s so good/interesting? But, it is towards the end of the essay that gets confusing.perhaps you could briefly state what’s confusing about it and then talk about in in great detail later. I don’t think I needed to know why at this point, but the transition into this last sentence seems a tad abrupt.
As stated before, Brandt uses quotes to state the other parent�s opinions and situations. This leaves little room, if any, for Brandt to set a tone for his opinion about religion. Why does it leave little room? What does quoting do that’s so bad? Using quotes is not always a good idea. Because he quoted so many parents, the reader was not able to connect with his views and purpose of the essay. elaborate a little more. Why weren’t they able to connect? Was it because his feelings weren’t being stated? Readers know the question that the essay is based on, but readers cannot figure out why he is writing it. Brandt also never seems to have an argument for what he is trying to say. The readers have an opinion on statements, but he does not argue the statement. This again suggests that he does not have a clear and set side taken on the matter. For example he writes, �For some parents, to be sure, questions like these present no problem. Either they have religious beliefs and are confident they can transmit them to their kids, or they have no religious beliefs at all and see no reason to raise their children to have any. I asked one father�� This is a good place to argue the questions with his opinion, but he fails to state anything. Give a specific example of how he could have argued the question.
Brandt talks about the world living in a secular society where the answers to our questions come from technology instead of the church. This again is another excellent argument to touch basis base, not basis on, but he does not elaborate at all on the fact we do live in a secular society. Brandt says, �Much of the Western culture springs form religious feeling; we are secular but our heritage is not, and there is no true identification with a culture without some feel for its past.� But in the conclusion of his essay Brandt admits, �To believe is to be connected, and those of us who don�t believe cannot help but miss the feelings that come with belonging to something larger than ourselves.� Why is this a good point in the paper to elaborate? What could he have done? These two statements Brandt makes the readers lean toward the idea that Brandt�s view is to make children have religion. But that is not all he says in his essay. The majority of your paragraph is quotes, you need to analyze more. The last sentence of the paragraph is, I believe, suppose to transition into the next, but it’s a bit vague. I think either here or at the beginning of the next paragraph you need a stronger transition.
In a short amount of space, Brandt uses the thoughts and opinions of psychologists such as, Kohlberg, Piaget, Erikson, Dostoyevski, and Ana-Marie Rizzuto. As we all know, scientists such as these are strictly enforced not to take religion into consideration for the fact that wording in here is a bit awkward it could interfere with their search for the truth. �Basic trust,� described by Erikson, is only what children need to survive. Lawrence Kohlberg believes �morality can survive without religion.� It is ironic that he would use these people to take advice it’s not advice, really (though I think it’s close) on religion when in fact they probably have not experienced much of it. Perhaps he could have picked better subjects to quote from. But isn’t the point that we DO live in a secular world and we naturally look to psychologists instead of priests and ministers to understand spirituality? Maybe you think he should be clearer about why he quotes them, but doesn’t it make sense that he quotes them, given his nonreligious background?
Unfortunately for a great subject, Brandt leaves the conclusion hanging out to dry. If this was the impression he was trying to make, well then he achieved it. But it is doubtful that that was what he was trying to accomplish. There are many statements, question, and dilemmas in Brandt�s essay but the biggest enigma of all is where Brandt stands in his own topic. Conclusion can pull all the pieces of your essay together more substantively and clearly. You’ve got a great start, Sue. Between Jim and Angelique, I don’t have much else to say! The big issue for revision, I think, is the transitions and order to make sure you have an essay that feels like a WHOLE, not a string of parts. You DO do this to some extent, but it can be even better! Also, as Jim suggests in his last comment, you can consider what Brandt may have been trying to do in dealing with a subject that may NOT have any definitive answers. This would make your argument more complex.
Metatext: I like the essay I wrote, but I do believe it is lacking something. Perhaps I over-criticized Brandt�s essay. I am not so sure what I am lacking with the essay. I do wish I had a little more time in doing this essay, meaning I wish we could have gone over what we had to do in class more. Overall, I do believe the essay turned out all right. It is definitely not the best work I have done, but I enjoyed writing it.