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Overcoming Adversity in Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Dancing Bear

This essay on "The Dancing Bear," a short story by Guy Vanderhaeghe, explains how symbolism, simile, and dialogue, among other literary devices, are used to convey a message about trauma and adversity.
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This essay received a C by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

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This essay received a C by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

More essays like this:

Not sure what I'd do without @Kibin
- Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University
Exactly what I needed.
- Jenna Kraig, student @ UCLA
Wow. Most helpful essay resource ever!
- Chris Stochs, student @ UC Berkeley

View other essays like this one:

Bridget's feedback:

"With your main argument, evidence, and textual references on the page, this draft forms a good platform to move forward in the writing process. In the body paragraphs, you make reference to literary devices like symbolism, character behavior, dialogue, and plot; you can use a reverse outline to make a list of the devices you argue contribute to the author's message, using that to craft a thesis that goes beyond the "what" (theme, message) and tells us "how" the author communicates the ideas. In order to do this, you may have to think about broader categories or different organization for the body presentation -- again, a reverse outline is a very helpful strategy to get a sense of your essay's moving parts.

At the level of writing, including mechanics, diction, and syntax, this current draft shows numerous errors. While you should prioritize higher-order concerns like organization and argumentation, make sure you save time for proofreading and similar sentence-level work later in the writing process. I notice, as well, repeated phrasing and redundant ideas; streamlining and trimming those away will help create more precision, in turn enhancing the reader's ability to focus on the ideas.

Keeping in mind the reader depends on you for cues, signposting, and the information necessary to comprehend your analysis, make sure to fully introduce the text (author, title) in your first paragraph. The work of revision is to create a clear piece of writing that most effectively communicates with the reader, so keep your audience in mind as you head to the next draft."

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