Responding to Student Writing: The Four Seasons

Overall this essay isn't bad. The student remains passive where voice is concerned. I would tell this student that he has a good command of how to use sensory detail to describe his scenes. He used a great deal of detail but perhaps he might want to reconsider his use of idioms as they detract from his originality. I was somewhat confused on page two. In the final paragraph, he starts with "Fall is my favorite season" but then contradicts himself by saying "I do not care for the way Fall strolls into Tallahassee, the way the leaves and flowers just shrivel away." I think he is trying to say that Fall is his favorite season in Syracuse, not Tallahassee, but this isn't made clear in the beginning of that paragraph. I would suggest that he might want to consider rephrasing for clarity. There were a few instances when he talked about how things made him feel but he didn't elaborate on why they made him feel this way. For example on page three, in the first paragraph he talks about raking leaves into a "humongous pile, you may get this crazed feeling" left me wanting to know where this crazed feeling comes from and why. On the same page, the final paragraph he does this again when he says "The atmosphere that surrounds you is serene." As a reader, I want to know how and why the Winter atmosphere has this effect on him. I would suggest that he consider elaborating on these points. I tell this student that this draft of his paper is a great start; he has created a firm foundation, but as a reader I want to know more about how the change of seasons makes him feel the way they do. Also, I would suggest that he doesn't "tell" his reader what he is going to do in the introduction, when he says "I will do my best to describe each season to you" rather let his thesis statement do that for him.