Essay #12

1/21/10
Jade
Mr.Salsich
English 8

The Difference Between What’s Right for Us, and What’s Right:
An Essay Based on the Book To Kill a Mocking Bird and My Life

To be able to tell right from wrong is as important as being able to tell night from day. To some it’s a simple task, just tell the truth and everything will be ok. When we are young and innocent children, right and wrong seem so clear to us. It’s not until we get older and start to learn more of the unforgiving world that the truth can get lost somewhere, and only the children seem to weep.

(TS)If the difference between right and wrong is so obvious, why do we often get them mixed up? In the book To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Ann Lee, we soon find out that sometimes only the children really care about what’s right and what’s wrong. (SD)Sometimes it’s hard to understand why people make their decisions. (CM)Atticus understands this, saying “I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it-seems that only the children weep.”(Lee, 285). (CM) To Atticus, telling what’s right and wrong is effortless, but he knows only children see the world like this. (SD)As we get older and the world steels our innocence, we think nothing of it. (CM)But when faced with a serious problem, only the people who can easily decipher right and wrong actually care about the outcome. (CM)When the children are listening to Tom Robinsons court case, they realize that he is innocent. Even knowing this, he is convicted guilty and they are the only ones who actually seem to care. (SD)There have been many times in my life when I have had choose between right and wrong. (CM)For me, it’s very easy to tell the difference, if it hurts someone, or you’re not supposed to do it, it’s wrong. (CM)Even knowing this, I’ve made the wrong decision because of fear. Being afraid of what might happen can cloud your mind and make you think it’s ok to lie. (CS)We sometimes get the truth mixed up because we are afraid. But often the truth will end up helping everyone a lot more.

To be able to interpret right from wrong is important to learn at a young age because it will stick with you for the rest of your life. If we learn it as a child, we learn to make the right choice throughout the rest of our life. If we don’t learn it as a child, we make bad decisions because we never made the important connections essential to live a successful life. We all start out like a blank slate, but it’s the world and the decisions we make that transform us into who we are today.

I am still working on trying to "unify" my essays. In this particular essay, I think I started out nicely, but somewhere near the middle I lost track of my point. I do however like how my writing flows like a poem at times. I don't think there are any harsh or jagged sentences that don't seem to fit in just right. Even knowing this, I think I see a potential problem in some of my longer sentences. When I try to make a sentence longer it can sometimes become confussing to the reader. I try to fix this as much as I can, but the problem is that every sentence makes sence to me, so I don't see the need to clarify anything. I would give myself a B- on this essay because I think i could have dont much better on keeping an umbrella over my work.