The Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt - Sample Essay

The Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt - Sample EssayThe Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt sample essay is a unique text to help students get their creative juices flowing. Like many of Mockenhaupt's works, this one is all about coming up with interesting subjects for essays and getting them written quickly and well. Students who can write from a place of personal experience will greatly benefit from this text.The story is set in a town where faux autobiography and reality collide. The main character has been shot in the leg and has to spend the next year recovering. The townspeople want to keep the story quiet for fear of the hunter chasing after the injured victim; however, when the hunting trip comes, they soon find that it goes much differently than expected.The Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt sample essay contains three short chapters that can be used as a class assignment or for personal reflection. The first chapter tells of the beginning of a gun fight, the second chapter tells of a bit of graffiti and the third chapter tells of the aftermath of the shooting. This allows students to build their own interpretation of what exactly happened, while giving them something to write about during class.After reading the first chapter, students can move on to the second chapter, which begins with a gun fight and ends with the townspeople deciding to watch the victims die in a different way. Students should use this opening chapter to reflect on what their personal values are and how they view gun ownership and violence. It is important to avoid pointing fingers or demanding solutions from students who want to write about this subject.In the third chapter, students can use the outline from the previous two chapters to move on to an exploration of graffiti and gun use. This chapter helps students think about what can be done about graffiti, using posters to help change the way people perceive these words. As students read this chapter, they ca n use the outline again and start thinking about changing the way graffiti is written so that it can be read in a new light.Another major part of the Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt sample essay is the writing itself. Students should not only be writing from their personal experiences, but should also be careful about doing so too directly. This is because one of the characteristics of Mockenhaupt's works is the very different style that he brings to the text.Many students find that Brian Mockenhaupt's writing style makes a lot of his works feel authentic. Although this particular essay may not always contain direct quotes from actual events, many people feel that the specific quote in this text is very appropriate. The first two paragraphs talk about the environment in which the living are forced to interact with the dead.The second paragraph talks about the people in the town who were actually murdered and were consequently forced to live out their lives. Although these p eople were not actually murdered, Mockenhaupt feels that they had to survive the ordeal. His style is similar to the style of many of the great mystery writers, particularly Agatha Christie, so it is not surprising that some students find the Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt sample essay to be quite suspenseful.