Melissa Lovell
English 101
A. Weinstein
6 September 2007
What a fruit!
I have always had a thing for fruits. The one fruit that I can never get enough of is strawberries. They are just so juicy and sweet. I cannot remember the first time that I had a strawberry but I can imagine that it was the best day of my life. My grandfather has been growing strawberries since I can remember. He has always had a small patch growing in the back yard. My great grandfather also grew strawberries, so I guess that you could say that I was destined to love strawberries. I have to say that the best strawberries that I have ever had in my life are the ones that are homegrown. I do not know why but they always taste better than the ones that are at the store. Most of my childhood memories have something to do with strawberries. The first memory came when I was in elementary school.
When I was in elementary school my parents decided that they were going to take my sister and me to the Strawberry Festival in Humboldt Tennessee. My grandfather was born there and my great-grandfather lived there at the time. The whole way up there I was so excited. I mean they dedicated a whole festival to strawberries. What could be better? The morning of the festival we got to the street where the parade was going to be happening early. We set up out lawn chairs and then sat and waited. The parade began and I was so happy. Everyone was in something that was a strawberry or at least resembled one. The parade lasted for a few hours and they were the happiest hours of my life. The people on the floats threw candy at us as they rode by. After the parade my parents bought me a shirt that had a huge strawberry on it. I wore that shirt all the time and finally my mother had to throw it away. Then in high school I experienced my second favorite experience with strawberries.
About two years ago my parents took my sister and me to visit my dad’s parents in Huntsville. My sister and I though that we were just going to see them and visit with other family members. When we got there my grandmother told me that we were going to go out and pick some strawberries and then we were going to make some strawberry jam. Now I love strawberries and homemade strawberry jam is right below my love for strawberries. I had so much fun picking the strawberries out of my grandfather’s garden. When we got inside we had to wash the strawberries. Now my grandmother had a certain way that she wanted them to be washed. I ended up washing the strawberries about 5 times. Then we split the strawberries into two groups. One group was for the jam. Then I had to decap the strawberries that were for the jam. That is I had to take the green part on the top of them off. Then I got to mash the strawberries to make the jam with. The other half we cut into small pieces and either ate them right then or we put them in a bowl and added some sugar. Then we continued to make the strawberry jam. I do not remember how to make it but I do remember the time that I spent with my grandmother and the fun we had. I do remember eating the other strawberries and feeling like the luckiest kid in the world. Though sometimes strawberries were not always nice to me.
I can only remember one time when I did not want to eat any strawberries. My mom used to make me breakfast before I went to school every morning. One morning after we had bought some strawberries, my mom decided that she was going to cut some up and give them to me and my sister to eat for breakfast. Now I love sugar on my strawberries, I mean they are really sweet without the sugar but they are ever better with the sugar. So I come downstairs for my breakfast. I start eating and then I move on to the strawberries once everything else is gone. I always save the best for last. I took one bit and spit it right back out. It tasted so nasty. I told my mom that she had bought really bad strawberries. She said that she had tried them right after she cut them and that they were really good. I told her that she needed to try them because they were everything but good. She took a bit and had the same reaction that I had had. She was so confused as to how they had managed to taste so good a few minutes before and then get to taste so bad. She was thinking long and hard until she started to laugh. My sister and I were so confused, I mean we did not say anything funny and neither had my mother. Then my mom told us why the strawberries had tasted so bad. She had accidentally added salt to them instead of sugar. Now we always double-check my mom when she has strawberries and she is making something with them.
Whenever I go to a buffet or a table or just to the refrigerator at home I look for strawberries. My friends always find it weird that I would get just a plate of strawberries if I could. I mean I want strawberries on my wedding cake and some just there for people to eat. They are the one food that I could never get tried of eating. I have to say I think that I may be slightly obsessed with them. I am surprise that I have not turned into a strawberry because I eat them so dang much. I mean I could be like that girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that turns into a blueberry cause she liked them so much. I even think that I resemble a strawberry a little bit. I get kind of red in the cheeks sometimes and strawberries are red. So if I was going to be a food, I think that I would choose to be a strawberry. They mean so much to me.
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4 comments:
I think your paper is very good! You make it very apparent that you love strawberries, anyone can 'say' that but you prove that you mean what you say. You have very good concrete examples on how you love strawberries (i.e. going to a strawberry parade). I also like how you show us that you have loved strawberries all your life. You not only give examples of when you are younger, but also as you were getting older, and present time; it makes the reader realize that this love for strawberries is not a phase, you have loved them all your life and will probably continue to love them.
One thing that I think may help improve your paper is working on the thesis statement in the first paragraph. I like all of the information in the first paragraph, but it is a lot of information at once; try organizing it.
In the first paragraph, instead of just stating that you like homegrown strawberries better than store bought, maybe try and make it its own paragraph; since you just move from that idea to another, it makes the first paragraph sound choppy. Try making that its own paragraph or to develop that idea more.
GOOD JOB! –Julia Burchfield
Hey Melissa,
Your paper is really good! I love strawberries as well, and could eat them at any time of day! I really like how you told a story of a time when you and your grandmother made strawberry jam. It adds a very personal aspect to the paper. Some things that you could work on are your transition. I think you have great ideas, just try and make your paper flow better throughout the paragraphs. This will cause the reader to be interested for longer. Also, try and work on the mechanics. Things such as grammar, punctuation, and run-ons. Another thing dealing with mechanics is try and take out words that you don’t need; words such as: like, and, so, and mean. It will make your paper a lot more effective if you leave those words that you don’t need out. Also, I think that you should wrap up your paper in the last paragraph. You can start off by saying “all in all, I have grown up loving strawberries because..” then restate what your main ideas in the paper were. Examples to work on: What happened in the parade, did they have music, games, etc? , What did you mash the strawberries with? Was it
like wine and did you mash them with your feet? Anything interesting like that? How long did you have the shirt for?
Overall, great paper! I enjoyed reading it!
-Meredith
SARAH R-GROUP 4
Hey Melissa
Your paper was quite interesting and full of detail. You were able to take the strawberry and thoroughly explain its value; however when it came time for you to explain how they are a symbol of you I felt you did not go into as much detail on that point. Your paper was full of its value and it was not until the end that you added a few points of how you and the strawberry resembled each other. Also you made numerous grammatical errors; which probably came from typing. My advice is to just re-read your paper once posted, because they are simple mistakes and can be found quickly. For example in paragraph two when you are talking about setting up the lawn chairs; I feel the word choice could be rearranged a bit. In paragraph four when you are talking about eating breakfast the sentence that begins with “I started eating…” needs to be rewritten. Overall I would give your paper a B it was good and you had thesis that you were able to stick with by using childhood memories. Your organization was also good, just watch and check for grammatical errors.
First off I love how this one food sorounds the lif of your family. How it connects you with you greatgrandfather and how so many memories come back to you as you are eating a simple fruit such as strawberries. There are though many little grammar and style errors that I believe that you could fix so that it can be easier for your audience to read.
The first thing is you have some gramar problems that are basic and should be abled to be fixed after just prrofreading over your paper. an example is in your second paragraph there is a part talking talking about Hambolt, Tennessee. there needs to be that comma etween Humbolt and Tennessee. Its just little basic grammar that hurt the way someone can look at your paper, but I am sure you can fix this by proofreading.
The second thing is style of your writing. You can shorten up some of your sentences in order to allow a sentence to be more smooth. An exmpple is when you say,
We set up out lawn chairs and then sat and waited.
A better way to sya this sentence woul be We set out lawn chairs, then sat and waited for the parade. The samll things in style can also help you keep the attantion of your audiences. All in all though this paper is very god and I hope you do well on your final revision.
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