English Composition: Critical Analysis of Braaksma's Article

This assignment is a critical analysis of an English composition essay, focusing on Andrew Braaksma's article. The student re-reads the article, restates the author's goal, and identifies key points. The essay discusses the author's perspective on the importance of higher education compared to blue-collar jobs. It addresses the target audience of new college students and potential challenges in supporting the argument. The student outlines their goal for the essay, which is to further support the author's claims about the value of education and how the opportunity for higher education should be embraced. The assignment also identifies evidence from the text to support the claims and discusses strategies for improving writing through feedback and revision.

Running head: ENGLISH COMPOSITION 1
English Composition
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Professor
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English Composition
1. Re-read your selected article and take careful notes, using analysis techniques
described in Module Two as guidance. For a review of these techniques, please click
here. Then, revisit your original interpretation of the author's goal and re-state the
claim to be addressed in your analysis essay. Has the author's goal changed with this
analytical reading of the text? If so, how? If not, why not?
Answer: The main goal of Andrew Braksma’s in his work is to offer the youth of today,
some useful knowledge regarding how working in the corporate world seems like with no
opportunity of education. The author tries to reflect on the difference between college life and
the blue-collar jobs to bring out the importance of being educated to some higher level.
Braksma’s key perspective involves the fact that today’s young generation fail to appreciate or
understand the importance of having higher education or how fortunate one is when given an
opportunity of chance to attend a university or college of choice (Braaksma, 2010). In summary,
the article has identified three primary facts such as higher education importance, the lack of
appreciation by the young generation when they have the luck of having an opportunity for
higher education and lastly, the fact that the higher education is able to further a person’s chance
of having a better future or experiencing one that is more secure. The author does not change his
goal anywhere in the course the reason being that his factory experience teaches him the need to
be educated, how one can lose job easily and how to work hard (Braaksma, 2010). This teaches
him how to rip big out of the college years and this makes him spend most of his finances on
beer and books.
2. Have you identified new key points that the author uses to try to achieve his or her
goal in the selected article? If so, include them here. If not, restate the key points

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you established in your Writing Notes assignment and explain why the key points
from your Writing Notes have remained the same, even after conducting an active
reading of the article.
Answer: The main topic that seems to sum up the article contents include;
"Sweating away the summers, working in the factory is a happier experience to hitting books”
“Life as a factory worker has taught me that the future might have been worse had I not got in
school”
“The life experiences are deeply rooted in my mind even when I get back to school and have to
spend my hard earned money on beer and books’’
“I decided to do the worker instead of bus tables or folding sweatshirts at the gap”
3. Re-state the audience who will be reading your essay. What potential challenges will
you have supporting your argument with this demographic?
Answer: my audience for the essay includes the fresh students who have just joined or
are about to join college of the university. The potential challenges with this group are that they
feel energetic as if they own the world. They are not ready to listen to their elders but want to
explore life by all means, have fun and party around the campus. They are ignorant about what
later life holds for them.
4. Your goal is the end result that you wish to achieve in writing the critical analysis
essay. What goal do you hope to accomplish with this essay? For example, you may
disagree with the author and demonstrate why they are incorrect, or you may agree
but want to further substantiate their claim.
Answer: My goal that I hold for the essay involves supporting the claim of the author
further. This involves showing the audience that going to college is not a mere coincidence but is

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an important chance that should be embraced by anyone who is lucky enough to come across it
(Braaksma, 2010). The audience also needs to know that not any one gets such a chance and to
those who get it, their future life in the corporate world is highly depended on it.
5. In a critical analysis essay, evidence is the material from the text that supports your
argument. Determine aspects of your claim that would be effectively supported with
evidence. Defend your choices.
Answer: The two aspects of claim that can be supported with evidence are one; the
authors choice to work rather than do anything else and two; the experience gained from working
in the factory that made him wonder how the future would be if he had not been educated
(Braaksma, 2010).
6. You will be receiving feedback on this draft. Feedback is helpful information or
criticism that explains what can be done to improve your essay. How can your own
writing improve from receiving feedback from an outside party? How can that
feedback be integrated in the final project?
Answer: I would love any feedback. I have never been that great with writing. Even in
high school I struggled. I think my writing would improve greatly. Constructive criticism only
makes us better.
7. During the revision process, a writer rereads the essay and makes significant
changes in content, organization, etc. to build the argument in a stronger, more
logical manner. You will learn more about revision strategies in Module 7, but some
of the most common revision techniques are peer evaluation (where you have a
classmate review your essay and provide you with feedback), read aloud (where you
print out a hard copy of your essay and read it aloud slowly), and read backwards

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(where you read the essay backwards word by word or paragraph by paragraph).
Identify a revision strategy that would be most effective in informing you while
writing this essay. Why would this strategy be effective?
Answer: I believe that if I were to read the essay aloud and also have one of my co-
workers read it and give me feedback would be the best strategy for me. Even my mother-in-law
could help me (with her being a journalist major). If I am able to pass this, then I know that in
the future I can do anything. English class has been the major reason I haven't gone back to
school.

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References
Braaksma, A., (2011). "Some Lesson's Learned From the Assembly Line" Essay, Journal of
Writing Research, p. 1-20.