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Example 1
Overall, this essay articulates very well the ironies, contradictions, confusions, and joys of the discovery of the dangers of sexuality during adolescence. You accomplish this mainly through subtly precise language and vivid attention to detail. The phrases "fake adulthood," "babysitting money in my back pocket," "the soft lighting on the bright green tint of my Midori Sour" kept me on my toes intellectually and made me grin with their truthfulness. You capture the specific details of the exoticness of the culture in which you experienced your rude awakening. For example, your description of the machista lingering above the bar "like a humid stench" beautifully illustrates the claustrophobic intoxication that sexually-charged bars are likely to evoke. At once, I can picture your scene but also know that I have never encountered a situation exactly like the one you describe. Only gifted writers can accomplish this. I enjoyed this essay very much, but I felt that it avoided exploring its climax (the confrontations between you and Manuel) as much as it could have. Also, I would have placed the descriptions of your friends toward the essay's beginning. That way, it would seem less like a digression and more like an exposition. The tension and scene established between you and Manuel does not need a distraction.

Example 2
The strongest part of this essay is in your descriptions. I think that physical descriptions of both people and places can be very important in creative writing, and are especially relevant to your story that revolves around a place the reader has presumably never been to. Detailed descriptions are necessary in this situation, in order to accumulate the reader, and I think you do that well. I see this especially in the third paragraph, when you talk about your tour guides, as well as in your description of the landscape in paragraph 5, and of the “town” in paragraph 9. You also throw in details here and there, such as the “bright orange” plane and the description of the family.” You really have a knack for painting a picture with your words, and these pictures carry the story.

A suggestion would be to change your opening, as it did not really catch my attention, but seemed kind of cliché. I do like how you compare your vacation with “traditional” vacations, though, so you might open with that idea, describing a scene from Alaska and comparing it with a scene from a previous vacation.