Another Year 9 Essay
I have added another exam essay from a Year 9 student. The essay was written in an exam and it is about the novel Holes. What do you think about it?
Describe a character who changed during the text. Explain why this change occurred.
An important character who changed in the novel, ‘Holes’ by Louis Sacher was the character Stanley Yelnats. At the start of the novel ‘Holes’ Stanley had no friends, he was overweight and lived in a poor family with his mother, father and grandfather. As a result he was dull and quiet and he wasn’t respected by his classmates, Stanley’s teacher even used Stanley as an example of a ratio; three times heavier than the smallest boy in his class.
When Stanley was wrongly committed of stealing Clyde Livingstone a famous baseball player’s shoes and sent to Camp Green Lake he had a great shock. Stanley had to dig a hole each day the same height and width of his shovel and this resulted in him losing weight and becoming fitter.
At Camp Green Lake Stanley also met a group of people, who because they came from poor backgrounds and were brought up badly didn’t judge Stanley straight away and saw the potential character inside him. As a result of good friends such as a boy called Zero, Stanley learned to respect himself and stand up for himself. Later in the novel this lead to him rescuing Zero and trying to find treasure which was rightfully his.
At the end of ‘Holes’ Stanley was richer and respected by people for what he did for Zero, and could stand up for himself because of going to Camp Green Lake.
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It is very superficial, and the novel gives it a way. For example, the second last paragraph talks mostly about his friendship, with zero and with the others. Could this not show that zero is very lonely? Or that stanley had a very low self esteem because of his bad luck? Probably The single most important thing in the story?