Peer Review

The second draft of the General Analysis (GA) essay required various changes from the first. Specifically, the thesis needed to be changed. Despite this, I kept my thesis the same for the most part. Instead, I changed the overall message of the story and made sure that the message was clear to the audience. With this, I made sure to use my peers' comments to make the slight adjustment that I did to my thesis and added aspects to my introduction paragraph.

Here is the feedback that my peers provided to me during class on Thursday, February 9.

The following underlined section is my original thesis from my first GA essay draft:

The following underlined section is the thesis of my second GA essay draft:

It is clearly almost the exact same thesis, but the simple change is my first genre convention. I specified that Zauner used fiction in her writing instead of the aspect of fiction that I planned to write about, which was character development.

My thesis contains the author's name, states three genre conventions, and states both genres that the story falls into. It also contains the intended audience, but it appears the main message may need to be added to the actual thesis, instead of stating it at a different point in the introduction.

I split my introduction into two separate paragraphs, as I did not want to stick to the five-paragraph formula. In the second half of my introduction, I was able to clearly specify and state the overall message that Zauner sends in "Crying in H Mart," which better addresses the prompt and grade contract of the GA essay. Instead of stating that Zauner portrays a message to her Korean audience, I stated that "Zauner captivates and sends a valuable message of cultural appreciation to her audience."

Despite being given very helpful and constructive criticism, this is how I felt the situation was going when I was being told how I should change my thesis:

I made an attempt to make my thesis as arguable, specific, structured, and sophisticated as possible. It was hard to execute, yet I do believe that an opinion could be formed against it, that the genre conventions are properly stated, and that it prepares my essay for good organization. From revising my thesis, I learned how to make my ideas more arguable, to the point where an opinion can be formed against them. According to the GA essay rubric, the overall language of the essay must serve the argument. The author must be objective and have formal word choice to make the essay scholarly. I believe that I have done just that.