Writing Assessment Program

Holistic Scoring: Sample Essays: Part II : 2 (Rudimentary)

Essay

The Television world, Real or Not?

As I recieve television as a fictional dramas that are displayed on screen to take me away from real-life problems. Of course I know that my problems will still be here when I turn off the television, but it’s fun to get away from it all just for a few moments.

As Jerzy Kosinsky said this experience “as superficial of a narrow slice of unreality.” What I interpied this as is everything on television is false and unreal, but every thing on television is not false.

What about live coverage of sports. This programes can’t be acted out.

What television programes does is to set goals for our selves so we have some person to look up to and to try to be. If we always look at reality we may behave even worse, this was quoted from Anne Roiphe, and despite the laughability of American romance, it’s not such a bad thing to keep on dreaming.

David Marc has summed it up the best in saying “In the world of the series, problems are not only solvable but usually solved. To accept this a ‘realistic’ is indeed an escape from the planet Earth. But how many viewers accept a TV series as realistic in this sense.”

Commentary

This writer has a main idea: He likes television because it takes him away from real life problems. He refers to this idea again in his conclusion. But the paragraphs in between do not support the thesis. The writer acknowledges the point made by Jerzy Kosinsky (that TV viewers are “acquiring.., a superficial glimpse of a narrow slice of unreality”), but argues that “everything on television is not false. “ The writer does not develop the point adequately. His development is a paragraph of two sentences, one of which is a question. The writer next introduces the point made by Ann Roiphe, that “it’s not such a bad thing to keep on dreaming.” But this point does not directly support the main idea. The writer succeeds in incorporating material from three of the four excerpts, but he quotes Kosinsky inaccurately, and he quotes Ann Roiphe without attribution. There are errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Many sentences are unclear: “As I recieve television as a fictional dramas that are displayed on screen to take me away from real-life problems.” “What I interpied this as is everything on television is false and unreal...”