IGCSE English

From my personal view I thought Merchant of Venice was not the most delightful movie and story I’ve seen. Actually it’s been quite a shock for me. I’ve heard of Jews being ignored and abused before in books and what teachers had told me before but I never actually thought that it would have been [...]

In my opinion ‘Sandpiper’ by Ahdaf Soueif is one of the best stories we have read in class yet. The story is somewhat like a movie almost, with the flashbacks of the past that help us as readers understand the story and the character better. The story itself is quite sad, how she was in [...]

The story ‘A Great Ambition’ is a short story written by an author named Morris Lurie. It’s a short story on his dream becoming a comic strip artist in his childhood. He was only 13 when his comic strip was published on a magazine called the ‘Boy magazine’. In other words he had his first [...]

The short story that I read is called “A Horse and Two Goats” and it is written by an author called R.K Narayan. The story’s setting is in a tiny small village called ‘Kritam’ and they had the size about thirty houses in the village. I thought the setting was just normal. Nothing so much [...]

Dear Paul Graham,

Recently I have read your essay “What You Can’t Say” and even though it is quite amusing, I am quite confused about several things. You seem to have a wide amount of knowledge and seem to be well experienced. The real question that really hit me, was ‘What do you gain [...]

Dear Paul Graham,

I recently read your essay “What You Can’t Say” in English class. I am amazed by your wide knowledge. You mentioned so many examples in history and discussed so many different ways of figuring out what it is that we can’t say and why. The essay raised questions in me about behavior, [...]

Dear Mr Graham,

Hi, Mr Graham I’m called Jun Ho and I’ve recently read one of your essays, “What you can’t say”. Once I read your essay at the very first, I was amazed by how various and deep knowledge that you have shown on your essay. I mean you’ve covered so much topics such [...]

Dear Mr Graham

As I read through this essay, I amazed how wide and deep your knowldge is. This essay was most informative essay I ever read because in this essay, you’ve covered a range of things starting with Fashion, conformist test, heresy and you even talked about “pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto”(means closed [...]

Febuary 13, 2013

Dear Mr.Graham,

I have recently been studying one of your essays, “What You Can’t Say,” and have wanted to tell you my thoughts and how I felt after reading it.

There are a million thoughts in a person’s mind that he keeps to himself [...]

Friday, February 8, 2013

Dear Paul Graham

This essay raises a lot of questions but it is also very intriguing. Before reading this essay and just by looking at the title I could guess what kind of topics will come in the essay and for most of them I was right. But what [...]

When watching The Merchant of Venice, It made me think about why our race is so discriminative. why do people treat others differently just because of their religion? What makes them any different? Do people just not want to accept difference and decide to make the other people feel miserable?

The Merchant of Venice showed [...]

Thursday, 6 December 2012

Dear George Orwell,

I have read your essay “Down The Mine” and I truly like how you have captured and made me interested about the mines. You have given me information that I never knew before. I also thought that the description and the emotions that was in [...]

6 December 1938

Dear Mr. Orwell,

Hello, I am a miner working near Wigan. I have read your essay Down the Mine from The Road to Wigan Pier, and I think it is a very interesting essay describing our daily job in a very detailed way. I heard that you actually stayed [...]

Dear Mr. Orwell, 20th december, 1947

I am intrigued as well as astonished by the quality of your writing, yet somewhat disturbed by the subject of it. I do not completely agree with your findings, however ingeniously displayed. I ask you: how can you be so negative about these mines?

Firstly, I’d like to point [...]

The Destructors by Graham Greene is a short story that takes place a short time after the world war. The story is about a gang who commits daily small harmless crimes. Trevor, a new member of the gang, comes up with a plan to destroy Old misery’s house. He becomes the leader and the gang [...]

After reading the short story that’s called “A Fly in the Ointment” written by V.S Pritchett, it leaves us with quite a few questions. In the story a young man called Harold feels pity for his father and goes to encourage him whose company has just been bankrupted. Harold and his father both are shy [...]

Response to “A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?”

The essay “A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?” was written by William Deresiewicz, and was published in April 7, 2012. It talks about whether or not a relationship between two people of the opposite sex can ever be not sexual, and just be built on platonic love. [...]

‘Lies We Tell Kids’ by Paul Graham is an intriguing essay about the ‘lies’ that the grown-ups tell the children. As a teenage myself, I found some points in this essay every interesting, and I do agree with some of the ideas. Protection is the main reason why parents lie to kids. “…the most [...]

The essay “Lies We Tell Kids” left me thinking for a long time – too long in fact. There are places I agree with Graham and things I don’t agree. There are parts in “Protection”, “Death”, “Identity”, “Peace”, “Detox” that I will comment on later. The essay has subtitles, which let people see the main [...]