My heart sped as I walked towards the front of the class. Today was the day I had been dreading for the past week. I hated speaking in front of the class and now I had to present my essay in front of the whole class. Adding to the stress, I was very sensitive about what I was going to read to the class. My grandfather had died in World War I. Seeing the grief-stricken look on my fathers face every anniversary of my grandfathers death broke my heart. I stared at my peers, their eager faces made mine go into shock. I decided to be safe and just read my essay instead of improvising a presentation.
"War is unavoidable and unpredictable. It is a devastatingly bitter event that occurs when any sort of uprising occurs from conflict," I read. I read the words, unaware of their actual meaning. I couldn't concentrate on anything more than the typed letters on my paper and the curious look on my teacher's face. As I read my essay, the tension in my muscles began to ease. I finally finished my paper and the class began to clap as I headed towards my seat.
"Hold on, Janie," my teacher said as the clapping seized. "I have a question for you before you take a seat. If war is unpredictable, then what about peace?"
I froze...What about peace? I repeated his words over and over in my head. There was nothing in my paper about peace. I gave no thought to peace when I was writing my essay. What was I supposed to say?
I finally opened my mouth, ready to say the first thing that popped to my mind. "Peace....Peace is well, Peace is glory. Peace is beauty. Peace is rare and must be treasured." I was unsure of my words as they came from my frightened mouth. I looked over at my teacher. He nodded and I took my seat.
I flowed through the rest of the school day, only thinking of my teachers question. "What about peace?" In history, we had been talking about the science of war. I came to a conclusion that it was part of the human race to disagree and to fight. This made me rethink all my previous knowledge of peace. If war was avoidable and simply did not exist, then peace would not exist. I thought about that for a little while before deciding that that was what I thought about peace. Peace is wonderful and filled with hope, but peace is because war is.
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1 comment:
You use, "the class" over and over in the first couple sentences. Change your diction.
Get rid of any unnecessary "had"s.
Father('s)
The second paragraph works well.
I would add more details to the end, when you're thinking about peace. Also, work on your final sentence. I like what you're going for, but you need to work on the wording.
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