You may know of Amy Tan. Her essay, Fish Cheeks, is a wonderful, top-notch example of a well written reflective essay. It's 503 words, and it says a lot. It's fun, it's fast, it's simple, and yet very dynamic. It's a prime example of an excellent writer doing more with less. This essay gets used over and over again to prepare students for writing College Essays.
Below is a link.
Between now and when you write your essay, do a lot of thinking and writing inside your brain. How can you relate to Tan's experience? Remember, your task is not to embrace the same kind of feeling and delivery.
By Amy Tan
Comparing the above essay to this next essay is a valuable endeavor, so look for patterns and similarities. Covering the 5 W's in a stylistic way that addresses an "issue" or a "problem" and comes to a concluded "resolution" is something both writers achieve - and these go beyond similar themes of culture.
The following essay by Maya Angelou is an excerpt from her book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which is an autobiography about Angelou's experiences growing up as a black American during racist times. She also wrote a poem of the same name, which I've included after the essay. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the caged bird represents, and what the singing alludes to - slave songs sung by those African Americans forced to work as captives before the American Civil War.
You will notice a lot of imagery (descriptive detail) that makes this writing engaging to read. Seek to include a bit of that. She also knows how to begin and conclude her essay with a strong hook and strong last line. Amy Tan also achieves this in "Fish Cheeks."
“Champion
of the World,”
by Maya Angelou
(from) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“Champion of the World” is the nineteenth
chapter in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; the title is a phrase taken from
the chapter. Remembering her own
childhood, the writer tells us how she and her older brother, Bailey, grew up
in a town in Arkansas. The center of
their lives was Grandmother and Uncle Willie’s store, a gathering place for the
black community. On the night when this
story takes place, Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber” and the hero of his people,
defends his heavyweight boxing title against a white contender. Angelou’s telling of the event both
entertains us and explains what it was like to be African American in a certain
time and place.
The last inch
of space was filled, yet people continued to wedge themselves along the walls
of the Store. Uncle Willie had turned
the radio up to its last notch so that youngsters on the porch wouldn’t miss a
word. Women sat on kitchen chairs,
dining-room chairs, stools, and upturned wooden boxes. Small children and babies perched on every
lap available and men leaned on the shelves or on each other.
The
apprehensive mood was shot through with shafts of gaiety, as a black sky is
streaked with lightning.
“I
ain’t worried ‘bout this fight. Joe’s
gonna whip that cracker like it’s open season.”
“He
gone whip him till that white boy call him Momma.”
At
last the talking finished and the string-along songs about razor blades were
over and the fight began.
“A
quick jab to the head.” In the Store the crowd grunted. “A left to the head and a right and another
left.” One of the listeners cackled like
a hen and was quieted.
“They’re
in a clinch, Louis is trying to fight his way out.”
Some
bitter comedian on the porch said, “That white man don’t mind hugging that
n_____ now, I betcha.”
“The
referee is moving in to break them up, but Louis finally pushed the contender
away and it’s an uppercut to the chin.
The contender is hanging on, now he’s backing away. Louis catches him with a short left to the
jaw.”
A
tide of murmuring assent poured out the door and into the yard.
“Another
left and another left. Louis is saving
that mighty right . . .” The mutter in
the store had grown into a baby roar and it was pierced by the clang of a bell
and the announcer’s “That’s the bell for round three, ladies and gentlemen.”
As
I pushed my way into the Store I wondered if the announcer gave any thought to
the fact that he was addressing as “ladies and gentlemen” all the Negroes
around the world who sat sweating and praying, glued to their “Master’s voice.”1
There
were only a few calls for RC Colas, Dr Peppers, and Hires root beer. The real festivities would begin after the
fight. Then even the old Christian
ladies who taught their children and tried themselves to practice turning the other
cheek would buy soft drinks, and if the Brown Bomber’s victory was a
particularly bloody one they would order peanut patties and Baby Ruths also.
Bailey
and I laid the coins on top of the cash register. Uncle Willie didn’t allow us to ring up sales
during a fight. It was too noisy and
might shake up the atmosphere. When the
gong rang for the next round we pushed through the near-sacred quiet to the
herd of children outside.
“He’s
got Louis against the ropes and now it’s a left to the body and a right to the
ribs. Another right to the body, it
looks like it was low . . . Yes, ladies
and gentlemen, the referee is signaling but the contender keeps raining the
blows on Louis. It’s another to the
body, and it looks like Louis is going down.”
My
race groaned. It was our people
falling. It was another lynching, yet
another Black man hanging on a tree. One
more woman ambushed and raped. A Black
boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on
the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for
being forgetful.
The
men in the Store stood away form the walls and at attention. Women greedily clutched the babes on their
laps while on the porch the shufflings and smiles, flirtings and pinchings of a
few minutes before were gone. This might
be the end of the world. If Joe lost we
were back in slavery and beyond help. It
would all be true; the accusations that we were lower types of human
beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy
and dirty and unlucky and worst of all, that God himself hated us and ordained
us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world
without end.
We
didn’t breathe. We didn’t hope. We waited.
“He’s
off the ropes, ladies and gentlemen.
He’s moving towards the corner of the ring.” There was no time to be relieved. The worst might still happen.
“And
now it looks like Joe is mad. He’s
caught Carnera with a left hook to the head and a right to the head. It’s a left jab to the body and another left
to the head. There’s a left cross and a
right to the head. The contender’s right
eye is bleeding and he can’t seem to keep his block up. Louis is penetrating every block. The referee is moving in, but Louis sends a
left to the body and it’s an uppercut to the chin and the contender is
dropping. He’s on the canvas, ladies and
gentlemen.”
Babies
slid to the floor as women stood up and men leaned toward the radio.
1”His
master’s voice,” accompanied by a picture of a little dog listening to a
phonograph, was a familiar advertising slogan.
(The picture still appears on some RCA recordings.)
“Here’s the referee. He’s counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven . .
. Is the contender trying to get up
again?”
All
the men in the store shouted, “NO.”
“—eight,
nine, ten.” There were a few sounds from
the audience, but they seemed to be holding themselves in against tremendous
pressure.
“The
fight is all over, ladies and gentlemen.
Let’s get the microphone over to the referee . . . Here he is.
He’s got the Brown Bomber’s hand, he’s holding it up . . . Here he is .
. .”
Then
the voice, husky and familiar, came to wash over uss—“The winnah, and still
heavyweight champeen of the world . . . Joe Louis.”
Champion
of the world. A Black boy. Some Black mother’s son. He was the strongest man in the world People drank Coca-Colas like ambrosia and ate
candy bars like Christmas. Some of the
men went behind the Store and poured white lightning in their soft-drink
bottles, and a few of the bigger boys followed them. Those who were not chased away came back
blowing their breath in front of of themselves like proud smokers.
It
would take an hour or more before the people would leave the Store and head for
home. Those who lived too far had made
arrangements to stay in town. It
wouldn’t be fit for a Black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country
road on a night when Joe Louis had proved that we were the strongest people in
the world.
Kennedy, X.L. and Dorothy M. Kennedy. The
Bedford Reader, Tenth Edition.
Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2003. 93-97.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hillfor the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hillfor the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Indeed, so much of American music - be it pop, blues, or rock - owes a huge debt to what Black Americans created to escape some of their suffering. Here is an example of a song she might be alluding to:
