A Life and Death Experience in a Chemistry Lab

By

Eric Sissom

English Composition II

Paper 2

19 September 2006

Outline

Thesis statement: “Chemistry Experiment” is about two students who had a life and death experience during a lab assignment that changed their lives forever.

I.        Two students did a chemistry lab together.

A.     They were well prepared.

1.      They wore lab coats.

2.      They wore safety goggles.

3.      They understood the professor’s instructions.

4.      They read the textbook twice.

B.     They thought they did a good job.

1.      They mixed the chemical combinations in the proper amounts and order.

2.      The lab went well.

C.     There was an explosion.

1.      The students were afraid for their life.

2.      Someone called 911.

3.      The fire department arrived and put out the fire.

4.      The students were not killed or critically injured.

5.      The building did not burn down.

II.     The students were embarrassed over the explosion.

A.     Rumors about the explosion spread across the campus for several weeks.

B.     The students dropped the course and went their separate ways.

C.     They were afraid that more damage could have happened.

D.     They avoided talking about the explosion.

III.   The students learned a good lesson.

A.     They could have been killed or seriously injured.

B.     Others could have been killed or injured.

C.     They will never know what they did wrong during the experiment, but one mistake can cause disaster.

D.     The students will probably never take chemistry again.

E.      The explosion changed their lives forever and would be a day they will never forget.

A Life and Death Experience in a Chemistry Lab

The poem “Chemistry Experiment” by Bart Edelman is about two students in a college chemistry class that did a lab assignment together.  They “wore lab coats and safety goggles” (line 4), and “mixed the perfect chemical combinations / in the proper amounts and order” (lines 5-6).  “Chemistry Experiment” is about two students who had a life and death experience during a lab assignment that changed their lives forever.

            The students thought they were prepared for this lab assignment.  “[They] listened intently to the professor, / followed each one of her instructions, / [and] read through the textbook twice” (lines 1-3).  When they were almost done, they thought they did a good job as “it was all progressing smoothly” (line 7) and “[they] thought [they] were a complete success” (line 8), but something went wrong.  There was a “loud, perplexing explosion” (line 10).  The students jumped back as they were afraid for their life with “the black rope of smoke, / rising freely above [their] singed hair” (lines 11-12).

            Someone else in the building heard the noise and called 911.  The fire department arrived “lickety-split” (line 15).  The fire was put out with the help of their “hazardous waste crew” (line 16).  Luckily the students were not killed or critically injured and the building did not burn down, therefore “deciding [they] were out of danger” (line 18).

Rumors about the explosion spread across the campus for several weeks.  The students were so embarrassed and “disillusioned” (line 21), that they dropped the course and went their separate ways as they “slowly retreated from each other” (line 23).  They both were afraid out of their minds with “the very idea [they] could have done / more damage than [they] actually did – / blown up [themselves] and the building / from the base of its foundation” (lines 24-27).

The incident changed their lives forever.  When anyone brings up the explosion in conversation or at a class reunion, the students often shoved it under the rug as “[they] get this sick feeling in [their] stomach” (line 31).  The explosion “shook [them], like nothing had before” (line 28), as they had a fear of getting killed or seriously injured from the situation.  The explosion could have been tragic for those two students or anyone else who was in the building.

The students learned a good lesson from their experience.  They will never know what they did wrong during the experiment to cause the explosion, but one lesson they learned is one mistake can cause disaster.  The students will probably never take chemistry again because they will be afraid to take that chance of the possibility of causing another accident.  The explosion was a life and death experience that changed their lives forever and would be a day they will never forget.

Works Cited

Edelman, Bart. “Chemistry Experiment.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing.  Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs.  8^th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007.  704.

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Grade: 85/100  |  This essay was written by Eric Sissom, e-mail: essay@ericsissom.com

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