FInal Essay 300-400 Words

Note: Must be unique, plagiarism check will apply!

Please read the following two versions of the same event (one written as a prose newspaper account, the other written as a poem).

And answer this key question in a short response essay:

What does the poetic version do that the prose version does not?  

Please, follow these Directions:

• Be sure your essay has a beginning, middle and end.
• Give examples and details that prove your point.
• Your essay should be approximately 300-400 words and should have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• Also, at the end of your essay, in a separate space, rate your own ability to write an effective essay from 1 to 10.

Version 1

The story as it might appear in a newspaper:

August 27, 1912

MONTPELIER, VERMONT.  A fourteen year old boy died early Tuesday evening from injuries sustained in a saw accident on his family farm.

Thomas Fields of Manchester was performing daily chores when he fell upon a gasoline-powered buzz saw and injured his wrist and hand. 

Field’s sister, Johanna, was calling Thomas for supper when the accident occurred. 

Dr. Eli Wainright of Bedford arrived at the farm at 6:30 PM and attempted to operate to save the hand, but, according to the doctor, the boy’s blood loss was already too severe. 

“We got the boy under ether to operate,” said Wainright, “but his heart rate was already diminished.  He never awoke from the anesthesia.”

Services for Thomas Fields will be held at the First Church of Manchester on Saturday at 10 AM.

Version 2

The same story as a poem

“Out, Out–“

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

And from there those that lifted eyes could count

Five mountain ranges one behind the other

Under the sunset far into Vermont.

And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

As it ran light, or had to bear a load.

And nothing happened: day was all but done.

Call it a day, I wish they might have said

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

His sister stood beside them in her apron

To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,

As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,

Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—

He must have given the hand. However it was,

Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!

The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—

He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off—

The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”

So. But the hand was gone already.

The doctor put him in the dark of ether.

He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.

And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.

No one believed. They listened at his heart.

Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.

No more to build on there. And they, since they

Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Note: Please see the attachment file, grading criteria cart!