I'm not a Bastard this Week, But I still Need Work

  

Last week, after returning home from my English Composition class, I wrote a little bit about how I had to be a cruel, heartless bastard in the peer editing process of one of our assignments.  And in so doing, I revealed something of my own need for a cruel, heartless bastard to edit my work…  Feel free to mock me, if you would like to do so.

This week’s peer editing session was altogether different.  We were required to have our essays examined by another classmate. I didn’t have to mark up every. single. sentence. of the paper I read tonight- which came as some relief to me.  I really don’t want everyone in the class to think I’m a jerk.

But what really amused me about tonight’s session was the way that my partner and I gave polar advice to each other.  His paper was strong in detail and expression, had some few problems with mechanics, but was a good beginning to a powerful emotional essay.  But when it came time for his “universal reflections” (for our essays are to include both personal and universal reflections) it was as if this fine emotionally compelling narrative came to a screaming halt so he could say, “I think the world should learn X, Y, and Z from my experience.”   (I’m paraphrasing, of course, but you get the idea…)

“Is there,” I asked him, “a way to weave these reflections in more seamlessly?” 

Conversely, when he finished reading my paper he said, “The universal reflections are in there, but they’re so blended in, it’s hard to separate them.”

And he’s right.