The River Styx
by Rachel, 11th grade writer

http://writingfix.com/Picture_Book_Prompts/Daisy_Comes_Home4.htm

I knew that I was going to have to experience this eventually, but who knew it would be so soon. The water of the river looked just as thick and as black as oil. I could hardly see it through the thick blanket of fog covering it. I saw no animals, possibly nothing was living. Even the trees that spotted the shore seemed to be dead. Everything was silent.

I could see something moving in the distance out on the river. As it inched its way closer, I saw a tall, thin, mysterious figure. It was wearing a cloak as black as the river itself. It was in a small ferry rowing up close to the shore where I stood wide-eyed and scared to death. It was Charon, the ferry driver of the river. I slowly stepped inside, half scared of what I had stepped into and half scared of the man beneath the cloak. We rode along slowly. Neither looks nor words were exchanged.

I could hear a faint cry of a man not to far away. As we got closer, I saw what I thought to be as the skinniest man I’d ever seen. I could see streams of tears running down his thin face as he reached as far as his arms could stretch just for a piece of fruit. But no matter how hard he strained, he would never be able to have the fruit touch his pale, cracked lips. Even the water seemed to go out of its way to be out of reach. After passing him, I could still hear his shouts and cries of hunger. (Tantalus)

I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. But the man I saw next could possibly have had it worse. A tall, muscular man wearing little to no clothing was pushing a boulder up a large hill. He was sweating profusely. He seemed angry, tired and determined, all at the same time. As he got close to the top of the hill, the boulder fell from his grasp and landed all the way back to the ground. He cried out in anger. It apparently wasn't the first time it had happened. He climbed back down the hill and began pushing the boulder back to the top. (Sisyphus)

There was another long stretch of silence and cold, black river. A sudden gleam of light made my eyes strain to stay open. The river was coming to an end, and I could already feel the feelings of depression and sadness just fall away into the blackness, which I would never return to. I would never want to have these feelings again, not even on the day I die and take the trip back down the River Styx to Hades.

My scores based off of the 6-traits of writing rubric.

Ideas: 4
Organization: 4
Voice: 3
Word Choice: 4
Fluency: 4
Conventions: 5

The ideas are clearly formulated with details. The only thing that drops the idea aspect down from a five to a four is the fourth paragraph about an man pushing a boulder up a hill. I have heard that story plenty of times.

I gave this story a 4 for organization because it was easy to follow in a sequential manner. There are a few transitions but are not strong and natural.

This piece has voice such as; "I couldn't help but feel sorry for him", or " I stood wide-eyed and scared to death.", but it is not apparent throughout the entire piece, it "pops out on occasion". It is apparent the writer is experimenting with voice, which gives us the pleasant feel, but not enough strong influence to hold the paper together.

The writer plays with some good choices in words and descriptions such as explaining the river like oil or "the trees that spotted the shore". The only thing that makes it lower than the top 5 score is the choice of transition words or sentence beginning words. Some of the paragraphs start with the repetitive "I could".

The sentences flow together rather well and do not carry on as run-on sentences. One of the reasons this sample did not score a five is due to the beginning sentences and the repetitiveness.

This paper scored a five on conventions because it used all punctuation and spelling correctly, even adding quotes and more difficult sentence structures.