Note: Everyone, this is a piece written by the lovely eleven-year old daughter of my boss at the hagwon, who has one-on-one English as a Second Language classes with me once a week. A little while ago, her parents were thinking of having her apply for an international school. Part of that application was a set of essays, including one about herself. The idea was abandoned, but we kept working her essay to a relatively finished state -- I didn't want to keep wearing her out on it so she'd lose all her pride in it.
It's been a couple of weeks since we finished and I got her permission to put the essay here for feedback. I'll print out reviews and bring them to her! This means that when at all possible, try to keep sentence structures pretty simple -- make the meaning of your review as easy to access as possible, please! Thank you from me and Judy~
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One day, when I visited my friend's house, the rain was too hard. And there, I saw a worm. My friend shouted. But I caught the worm and put him on the soil. My friend watched me strangely, but I was proud that I helped a worm to live.
A different day, I was cleaning the computer room with my friends. So we thought, "How can we clean the outside window?" but I did it. I put my half of my body out through the window, and I cleaned it. My friends clapped for me. I was proud, too.
Sometimes, our class talks about our abilities and presents how we can do them well. After, I usually write about drawing, exercising or playing the recorder. In music class, I play the recorder with my friends Siwon and Dahye. Our classmates often clapped for us. We are the best recorder players. So when I finish talking about my abilities, I teach how to play the recorder easily.
Usually, my parents praise my abilities. When they praise me, I am proud, too. And I am very thankful that they believe in me and encourage me to be a diplomat. If I didn't meet my parents, my future would be so different. So I am thankful to them.
However, I feel sorry to them, too. They worry about me. They try to help me a little bit, too. The thing I am most sorry about being sick. A few days ago, I had a stomachache. They try to make me happy. They cooked food that I wanted to eat. And now it's my turn to make them happy. I'm trying hard to study and I don't play after school anymore.
My parents also worried about me going to a good school. In September, they made me go to a new school. Before I came to my new school, my head was full of worries. I didn't know anyone. I didn't think I was popular. But in my house, I played with people who I met. They said "you are a very good friend." Now I am a popular girl in fifth grade. My teacher told me, "I hope you can help new student when they come." So I'll help new student when she comes. I am waiting for her. Now I have many best friends, but my most best friend is Siwon. Everyone thought we are twin sisters.
With my life, I want to be a diplomat and I'll travel to many countries. I'll help other people, too. If I really become a diplomat, I'll introduce the excellence of Korean culture because I want to introduce Korea so many people will think it is good. I want to please everyone that believed in me.
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137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Hey there. Review for you.
I like the way this essay unfolds. It's really cute. Gives a whole new meaning to "simplicity=greatness." We all remember a time when we, too, were eleven and had some if the same worries and curiosities as Judy does in this here essay. I love her narrative voice. It's pretty adorable. Possibly my favorite thing about this is the paragraph when she talked about being nervous about going to her new school. This particularly struck me because i often had to change schools when I was a little guy and I remember feeling the exact same way. I was never planning on being a diplomat, but I guess my eleven-year-old self could've related to this pretty well.
My only issue with this essay is the fact that it doesn't address the fact that Judy is bilingual or that English is her second language. I expected there to be some sort of internal dialogue or some kind of thought process involving the young girl being nervous about how she would be accepted into a new and different country and culture, and trying to adjust to that while still maintaining her Korean identity. I guess that would be a little complex for an eleven-year-old, but it just would've been cool to see. Not having any of that in this essay doesn't really take away from the awesomeness, however. So, great job here.
-GL24
Hi Judy and Hannah!
This was a very cute and interesting read; keeping in mind that English is your second language, you have done very well. You should feel just as proud over this essay as you did when you cleaned those windows, and saved that worm.
I think it's truly inspiring to see an 11-year old having the ambition to become a diplomat. It gives me hope as an aspiring writer, and as a human being, that the art of words is not lost, and that people at eleven are already finding their passion.
To you, Hannah; I imagine you must be quite the excellent teacher, keep working Judy's talent.
And to you, Judy; do not worry about those scary places and moments, like when starting a new class, or in a new school all together. Do not worry about being popular. Just be kind and compassionate, and NEVER lose sight of your dreams. Be loyal and sincere, and you will see that those friends who are worth keeping will come to stay, and cheer you on as you follow that dream into reality.
Keep writing, keep writing; keep writing!
Hi Judy!
I hope you keep writing too, because you're really good!
I'm Ellie, and I'm going to review this story for you. You're lucky to have Hannah as your teacher! She's really a wonderful person. You're a really good writer. You write better than I did when I was eleven, and you're so good at English for it to be your second language! I didn't even start learning a second language until I was twelve years old.
In your first paragraph, I think you can describe a little more how you and your friend felt when you found the worm. Did you and your friend say anything when you were deciding what to do with him? How did you feel knowing he was all alone in the rain? I think you can go into more detail with your second paragraph too! Why did you need to clean the computer room, and how were you able to stick yourself out the window without getting hurt?
I think you could describe why you like to play the recorder and why it makes you happy when you perform! You mention you want to be a diplomat but then you don't explain it until two paragraphs later, so I think you could say a little something about why you want to diplomat and and then expand on it in the last paragraph because I think it's a good way to end.
I think that's so wonderful that you want to help people out with your life. Just remember, if you put your mind to something, you can do it!
Judy, what an amazing writer you are!
Hi Hannah and Judy!
This was really, really lovely to read! I think it's amazing that an eleven year old can write this well. Especially as English is their second-language. The grammar in this is really good, and even I find it hard to write correctly and English is my first language. I think it's really great that Judy wants to be a diplomat and travel to different countries. Travelling is great! It's also really cool that Judy is so young and already knows what she wants to do, ambition is great.
One thing you might want to try doing in the future is joining together two short sentences with a comma. I noticed in this there were quite a lot of short sentences that could be longer. Don't worry too much about that though for now, but it's just something to think about.
I can't really think of anything else to say, sorry this is so short really! But I can tell that Judy will improve her writing loads in the future, she's got a really good start right now. If you didn't understand any part of this review I'm really sorry, but I'm sure Hannah will be able to help out.
Keep writing, you've got a spark for it!
~ArcticMonkey x
Well, this was well thought out. But it should be, '...the rain was coming down to hard.' That was the only sentence that I found that had something wrong. This was formatted very well and she has excellent writing abilities!
Ah hem. Well, this was better than some of the essays from my school. I think that it's interesting that she wants to be a diplomat! (As I am Korean, this picked my interest.)
She wrote as though she would be in the sixth or seventh grade. This was great in every sense of the word. I hope that she writes more in the future Hannah!
With All Do Respect
Wholesomereader
Adorable!
Hello there, Hannah and Judy! This was quite the lovely piece to read; you did such an amazing job! I'm here to give you some advice on how to make your story flow better.
First off is a couple things I noticed you could change, or perhaps re-write. Here they are:
I think a better replacement would be "the downpour was heavy."
Right there is a great spot to continue on! Did she shout in surprise or fear? The readers, we must know! Please let us know, by giving some details that help paint a picture for our greedy brains.
Simply cut out that "to" and you have a beautiful sentence there!
A better way to write that sentence is to take out the "but" and say something along the lines of "I figured out how."
You can take off that word! The sentence sounds much better without it.
Replace with "for".
Replace with "thinks".
Wow, Judy! This was such a pleasure to read. You are doing amazing with your grammar skills, Hannah must be so proud of you, as well as your parents! I truly am impressed, you seem like such a smart girl and you have such a beautiful mind. The way you put your thoughts into words is amazing.
You have some things you still need to improve on, but I know you'll get it if you keep trying! Hannah will help you along the way, so have faith in her.
Again, amazing job. Please, keep on writing. I hope that Hannah will post more of your works!
~ Iggy.