Final Draft, Essay 2

Colin Burlingham
Mr. H. Salsich
English 8th
9/23/09

The Misery of Mistakes:
This Essay is About When Scout Couldn't Find the
Right Words to Say in To Kill A Mocking Bird

(TS)A long time ago, when I was around the age of five, I was at one of my grandparent’s parties serving dinner and there was one person who was eating all the food. (CM)I walked up to him, and took his plate away early and then I didn’t know how to tell him to stop eating, so I just blurted out, “You are really fat; maybe you should stop stuffing your face.” (CM)Everyone in the room heard it and started laughing, except the old man. (CS)I was deeply embarrassed and I ran back to my house, but every now and then this happens; sometimes when you mean well, others might view it differently.

(TS)In To Kill a Mocking Bird, this happens a lot to Scout on her first day of school. (SD)Miss Caroline asked Scout to read from a book and she could read very well, but Miss Caroline was not impressed. (CM)“I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. (p22)” (CM)Miss Caroline told Scout that she couldn’t be taught by her father any longer, and made Scout feel mad that she had to act dumb for the rest of the class. (SD) Out of boredom, Scout began to write a letter, to her friend Dill when Miss Caroline walked by. (CM)Miss Caroline caught Scout writing the letter and she got mad again and said, “We don’t script in the first grade, we print. You won’t learn to write until you’re in the third grade.(p 24)” (CM)After this, Scout had lost her enthusiasm for school even though she had been looking forward to it for so long. (SD)When lunch time came, everyone had a lunch except for Walter Cunningham, because he did not have enough money for lunch, and when Miss Caroline offered him money to get a meal, he declined it because he wouldn't be able to pay her back. (CM)Scout immediately thought that, “it was beyond (her) ability to explain things as well as Atticus, so (she) said,’ Your shamin’ him, Miss Caroline (p28)’” to keep Walter from embarrassment. (CM)Miss Caroline dragged Scout behind her desk and slapped her with the ruler, and then sent her to sit in the corner. (CS)Sometimes, things just come out the wrong way and you can get punished for them.
(TS)I hate it when you can’t find the right way to say something. (SD)This has happened to me many times and most often in school like Scout. (CM)In third grade, I was taking a grammar quiz and I could not remember the definition to the word “Hibernate,” so I had to guess and I put down, “to hide and eat,” which is absurd and the teacher got mad at me for not knowing the answer. (CM)This happened to Scout too when she was reading what the teacher asked her to read, and yet the teacher responded negatively and Scout was being punished for doing what she was told to do which is unfair, and if this happened to me, I would be upset with the teacher. (SD)This also happened a few years back, there was a new student, who was really smart, and he would raise his hand all the time in class. (CM)The student thought he was participating in class and wanted to show that he had studied. (CM)All the other students, including my self, thought he was showing off just to get on the teacher's good side. (SD)I especially hate it when you get punished for doing something too well. (CM)I was thinking about when I was in K1, and we had those little paper books to read for homework, and there was another student who could read the books very quickly during class. (CM)The teacher then got mad at him for doing his homework during class and she was also curious of how he became such a good reader. (CS)As you can see, even when you are doing the right thing, you can be viewed differently and get punished for it.
(TS)There is always a time in every person's life when you just can’t think of the right words to say. (CM)There are also times when you mean well, but it is viewed badly. (CM)It is always best to slow down and think before you act or speak. (CS)By the end of the day, I think that Scout will have learned to think first.