Paolo Prendushi -- First Writing Assignment (catchy title :) )

  In thinking about the Mark Twain quotation that was part of the prompt
  for this assignment, I think it's necessary to recall that Twain was first
  and foremost a "humorist" and a satirist -- his first goal in almost everything 
  he said and wrote was *to make people laugh* (at others and at themselves) 
  and then to get them to think about how silly a lot of their preconceptions 
  and actions are.   So it seems to me that his idea that aging in reverse 
  would lead to an "infinitely happier life" is not a serious proposal. It's 
  a way to get us to laugh about the indignities of aging.  He wants us to think 
  about whether being young is really any better than being old and whether life 
  really would be any better "in reverse."    

  Your essay relating this idea from the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin 
  Button"  has some good points.  You do a pretty good job of pointing out 
  ways that Benjamin's story essentially shows that what Twain is saying is 
  not true at all on the literal level.  (And in fact, the Fitzgerald story
  on which the movie was loosely based is even more clearly a sort of "thought 
  experiment" designed to refute Twain's literal claim.)  But there is more
  you could say too and you only really considered how Daisy and Benjamin
  interact during parts of their lives.  

  But it's good that you also clearly see that the main issue for Benjamin is not 
  only that he is aging "in reverse."  It's that he is an single individual living 
  "in reverse" in a world of people aging in the normal direction.  So he faces 
  obstacles you discuss and many others too at almost every step of the way.  Even 
  though he has many of the same physical-age-appropriate experiences as other people, 
  his physical appearance and condition are always out of step with his mental 
  age *from the point of view of those other people*.  So it's not just the direction 
  of aging by itself that is the really important point.  It's how that direction of 
  aging makes you in step or out of step with everyone around you that really matters 
  for how things play out in this story.

  The writing is generally good but there are some issues.  I would suggest that 
  you really think twice about using words like "transcendent" or "unique."  It's 
  easy to end up sounding "way over the top" with them unless the thing you are 
  describing really does transcend all comparable things or if it is literally one 
  of a kind. 

  There are also some unclear and garbled-sounding sentences.  At bottom of 
  page 2, for instance:  "He is in love with Daisy and wants to be there, but 
  in such a complicated case as his where death isn’t even the driving force of 
  his solidarity is what makes it that much more depressing and grim." 
  I just don't know what you meant there.  I mostly don't see how "solidarity"
  fits with this or how the last clause "is what makes it that much more depressing 
  and grim" relates to the rest of the sentence.  In your last paragraph, there
  is another sentence that I could just not figure out:  "It makes a case like 
  Benjamin’s believable, a person constantly learning from his mistakes, falling 
  in love and yet falling in a love that no one but him can go through."  What 
  does the "it" refer to?  The only things in the previous sentences that would 
  work are the references to Benjamin or his case.  But neither of those can be 
  what you meant here.  

  Content -- B+

  Structure/Mechanics -- B