Essay Help?

Question

Ok, at the moment I'm working on an essay for my eighth grade English class. We've just complete reading the screenplay "The Diaries of Anne Frank," and must now write an essay on it.

The promt goes as follows,

"John Dickinson once said 'We cannot be happy without being free.' Convince me to agree or disagree with this quote by using examples from the story."

So far I have my introduction paragraph completed and I need help revising/editing it. I also have a small case of writers block...uuhhggg....and need a few ideas for supporting ideas.

I'm running out of space so I'll include my first paragraph in a second. Any comments on it help, be gramatical or anything else.

Ok, here's my first paragraph;

The walls of the room seemed to imprison Anne like the bars of a prison. She could not go outside. She could not even look out a window because of the chance that someone might see her, sentencing her to even greater captivity. It seemed as if she was ultimately trapped. Concerning freedom, John Dickinson once said,
“We cannot be happy with out being free,” yet some how Anne Frank continued to be happy. She found joy in the small things, and although she was confined, first behind the walls of “the Secret Annex” then next behind the barbed-wire fences of the concentration camp she had pure ecstasy because no one could encage her thoughts.

If anyone has ideas for supporting paragraphs that would be great too.

Thanks for the edits Pantois! That photo is AMAZING! That's so neat.

And Amber, wow! Great idea to tie the whole essay together. I'llhave to use the whole although she died in captivity she was ultimatly free. Thanks

Man, it's going to hard to choose a best answer.

Answer 1

My edits:
1." The walls of the room seemed to imprison . . ."
The walls imprisoned . . .

2. " . . .because of the chance . . ."
. . .because she could not risk . . . (add the punch of a more serious word to match to awfulness of this story's tone)

3." . . .to even greater . . ."
. . .to even lesser freedom (the word "great" isn't correct here. Look it up as a writer to know it well.)

4. "It seemed as if . . ."
She was ultimately trapped. (Avoid pussyfooting around.)

5. " . . , yet somehow . . ."
(New sentence) Yet, somehow . . .(Make it easy for your reader to read. The less complication, the better.)

6. "She found joy in the small things."
She found joy in small things. (Lose "the")

7. " . . .and, although she was confined, first behind the walls of the "Secret Annex" then next behind the barbed-wire fences of the concentration camp she had pure ecstasy because no one could engage her thoughts."
Collaborative edit: Although she was confined within the walls of the Secret Annex and then within the barbed-wire of a concentration camp, Anne maintained a place of happiness, a place somewhere within herself where no one could confine her. (Just a suggestion).

Good luck. Nice writing, by the way. Nice indeed. Now, get back to work. Harder. Faster. : )
(Just to set your writer's block free and not to distract you, here's a link to click on for an amazing image:)
http://www.wonderfulinfo.com/amazing/burma.htm

Answer 2

Great writing and you've gotten some great edits so far. What I suggest for your other paragraphs is to talk about what she did to make herself happy, how she found joy in the little things...bring in the fact that she had really no reason to be happy because she was practically chained at a critical point in her life, but that she was happy, she continued to be happy and a really dramatic ending you could use would be to say that her tragic death set her free, even when she died in captivity . Good luck with that.

Answer 3

You are a good writer. I would agree on the edit suggestions listed above.

Answer 4

what you can do is try to be as persuasive as you can like your tryna convince your own self that you can or cant be happy free it will come a lot easier to you and get rid of some writers block