How to Fail Subtest Three

Five Types of Failing Essays

#1 – The Theme (and nothing but the theme) Essay

This is the most common type of failing essay I see.  This test-taker is so relieved to have “figured out” the theme of the work, it’s all he/she writes about. 

 

In Shakespeare’s “My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun,” the poet is describing his lover and saying that, even though she isn’t perfect, she’s “rare” and he loves her.  She is beautiful to him. 

In the first and second stanzas Shakespeare describes the woman’s skin, lips and hair.  Her skin may not be as white as snow, and her lips may not be as red as they could be, and her hair is black, not “fair.”  In the third stanza Shakespeare is saying that his lover’s breath is not perfect, and her voice doesn’t sound like music

 

In the couplet, Shakespeare is trying to say that, even though his lover is not perfect, she is beautiful to him.  She is “rare,” he says, and that makes her unique and perfect to the person who loves her.  In conclusion, even though the woman described in the poem isn’t perfect, she is perfect to the one who loves her. 

(By the way: an author is never “trying" to say anything; he’s SAYING it, especially if he’s Shakespeare.)

#2 - The “Off On A Tangent” Essay

This test-taker was never taught how to analyze literature, so instead, he writes about subjects of interest to him, like history, the war in Iraq, or song lyrics. Here’s an example:

In Shakespeare’s “My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun,” the poet is describing his lover and saying that, even though she isn’t perfect, she’s “rare” and he loves her.  Love is important; it is what makes the world go around, as they say.  In Elizabethan times, many romantic poets wrote about love.  They also wrote about chivalry and honor. 

 

Shakespeare is trying to say that even though someone may not be perfect, we should love them anyway.  The war in Iraq is a good example of what happens when people don’t see the good in each other and fear those who are different.  As John Lennon said, let’s “Imagine” a world at peace, where people loves one another.

#3 - The Pretentious Essay

This type of test-taker considers himself “a great writer” but doesn’t know that "good writers" are clear and concise.  Also illustrated here is what I call the “synonym problem”: “The poem is long and lengthy...” (Choose ONE and go with it.) 

In his sonnet, “My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun,” the Bard pays tribute to the actualized vision of a beautific heroine who is fully realized or accessed through various allusions, metaphors, similes, and personifications, not to mention the obvious tone and diction which is employed with the utmost skill and mastery.  Alas, this contrivance is short-lived; our tour guide, Will, manifests the desire to critique even the most insignificant and obscure of his contemporary poets, and deigns to mock the petty insincerities of their verbiage, even as his lexiconic choices can be called into question perhaps as appropriately and justifiably. 

#4 - The Illiterate Essay

Maybe teaching English should not be your goal(?) 

In his poem, it uses Metaphors and there purpose is to compare an Lady to a uglier lady then she already is.  Shakespeare he is, a Poet, that is good with Words, which it is proven to be, heretofor, and he writes Iambic words.  This poem, being a Poem that it is good of describing about a girl which was pretty but not really, it makes you think.  At the beginning, the person talking revealed his thinking, and said she reeks, and her skin is dun, and who can say what that is?  At the end, she, the Girl I mentioned, previously, above, was’nt ugly after all that’s what I thought when I read it, You will to.  In conclusion, Shakespeare the poems he wrote is good.  I liked it because even though you thought something before you end up thinking something else and something different then you already did, that’s why Readers will like this Poem, it had meter in it.  And some Rhyme to.

 

               # 5 - The “Wrong About Everything” Essay

This type of test-taker has heard the words metaphor, simile, alliteration, and onomatopoeia, but has no idea what they mean.  He’ll try to throw them in whenever possible, though, because he thinks it’ll make him sound “smart.” 

In this poem, Shakespeare uses Shakespearean diction to talk about his mistress, who is ugly.  The tone is he uses big, complicated words on purpose.  The imagery is the word “damask” and there are a lot of similes, for example, “coral is far more red.”  Shakespeare says his girlfriend’s hair is oily, (“black wires grow on her head”).  

 

There is alliteration, like the words “mistress’ eyes” and assonance, like the words,“the sun.”  Assonance, as we all know, is when two words contain the same number of letters. 

 

Shakespeare uses a metaphor, which means exaggeration.  He describes his mistress as more beautiful than she really is.  He also uses onomatopoeia when he says her lips are “coral.”  Lastly, this poem uses figurative language, for example, “treads on the ground.”

 

 

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